Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION

Programmed Learning

Miss Quennell: asked the Minister of Education what research and experimental work has been undertaken by his Department on teaching machines.

The Minister of Education (Sir Edward Boyle): I am currently supporting from my research fund investigations into various aspects of programmed learning at the Universities of Birmingham, Leicester and Sheffield. The investigations cover variations in methods of programming; the effectiveness of programmed methods for younger children; the use of automated techniques in teaching mathematics in the secondary school; and the evaluation of programmes in physical chemistry at G.C.E. A level.

Miss Quennell: Could my right hon. Friend indicate the volume of work that is being supported from these funds?

Sir E. Boyle: The total contribution from the research funds for these projects will be just over £25,000. I will gladly send my hon. Friend further details.

Mr. Willey: Does the Minister recognise that this is inadequate on the part of his Department and that a good deal of work is being done of great significance to education? Would the right hon. Gentleman consider not only financing the experiments but conveying and demonstrating the results to the teaching profession?

Sir E. Boyle: There is a later Question on the Notice Paper on conveying the results, which is certainly most important, but I can assure the hon.

Gentleman that as we can get them we will make every effort, or my successors will, to see that these results are conveyed.

English Grammar and Literature

Mr. Dudley Smith: asked the Minister of Education if he is satisfied that the teaching of English grammar and English literature are receiving sufficient priority in primary and secondary modern schools; and if he will make a statement.

Sir E. Boyle: Yes, Sir, though I am sure that all teachers of English regard constant improvement of the content and methods of their work as one of their most important professional responsibilities. I greatly welcome their recent initiative in establishing a National Association for the Teaching of English.

Mr. Smith: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask him if he is aware that there is a growing feeling in many directions that the teaching of science and mathematics has been promoted in recent years rather at the expense of teaching English and also that employers are finding some young people at the present time, while well equipped in many directions, rather woefully inadequate in grammar, spelling and general syntax? Could my right hon. Friend say if the study group is going into the question, and, if not, would he encourage it to do so?

Sir E. Boyle: I will send my hon. Friend a copy of the valuable advice given in the Secondary School Examinations Council's Bulletin No. 1 on the new C.S.E. examination in English. I think that reading and spelling ability has measurably risen but examinations have tended to emphasise those elements in the teaching of English which could be more easily tested and examined.

Dr. King: Is the Minister aware that the criticism of his hon. Friend has been made about the teaching of English over the last one hundred years, that the most significant feature of the Newsom Report calls attention to the tremendous improvement in the reading of our children, and that the teaching profession will welcome his Answer?

Sir E. Boyle: It is true, as I say, that reading and spelling ability has demonstrably risen and that the emphasis on grammar may have been overdone. It is important to secure a better balance between the three main elements of teaching English, speaking, reading and writing.

Careers Teachers

Miss Quennell: asked the Minister of Education how many secondary schools have no careers teachers.

Sir E. Boyle: I regret that this information is not available.

Miss Quennell: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this very unfortunate lack of information is really critical in the context of our present educational studies, and will he take steps to acquire information as quickly as possible and let us have it?

Sir E. Boyle: I do not like putting too much of a burden on the authorities for the collection of information, but I agree that there is considerable room for improvement in spreading this practice to many types of school and training and for helping teachers who are given these responsibilities.

Weymouth Area (College of Advanced Technology)

Mr. Barnett: asked the Minister of Education whether he will consider siting a college of advanced technology in the Weymouth area.

Sir E. Boyle: It is not the Government's intention to establish any new colleges of advanced technology as such. At the Government's request the University Grants Committee is considering, in the context of a 10-year programme of university development, the recommendation of the Robbins Committee for the foundation of new universities, but I cannot anticipate what advice it will give.

Mr. Barnett: Will the Minister please bear in mind the possibility of this area in view of the fact that the nearest universities, Bristol, Southampton and Exeter, are all in the region of 60 miles away that this is an area of growing population and also of developing industry, both engineering and atomic energy,

and that these industries would benefit enormously from the existence of a university or college of this kind with a bent towards engineering and, perhaps, scientific research?

Sir E. Boyle: I will draw the attention of the University Grants Committee to the hon. Gentleman's supplementary Question.

Mechanical Engineering (City and Guilds Examination)

Mr. Boyden: asked the Minister of Education, in view of the 40 per cent. failure rate, representing over 3,000 failed candidates in part one of the mechanical enegineering craft practice course of the City and Guilds of London Institute examination held in 1963, if he will discuss with the examining body the type of examinaton best suited to current requirements.

Sir E. Boyle: I share the hon. Member's concern, and discussions are already taking place with the City and Guilds of London Institute about possible modifications in this examination.

Mr. Boyden: I am glad that the Minister is it last showing anxiety about this. Does he recollect that in the recent education debate he was very happy about the result of Cmnd. 1254? Is he aware that out of 24,000 candidates for this type of examination, as well as the one I have referred to, there were 10,000 failures. Will he say more specifically what he will do to see that there are better opportunities in technical education?

Sir E. Boyle: The hon. Gentleman has rather widened the question. I still believe that the 1961 White Paper has proved important. There is a particularly high failure rate in this examination, and the Advisory Committee is considering altering the method of certification in order to give a broader picture of the performance of the candidates. I shall write to the hon. Gentleman further about this matter.

Central Library Cataloguing (Computers)

Mr. Boyden: asked the Minister of Education what progress has been made in investigating the use of a computer


for central library cataloguing as recommended by the Baker Working Party on Inter-Library Co-operation in paragraph 37 of its Report.

Sir E. Boyle: It has been established that it would be technically possible to use a computer for much of the work of handling applications for inter-library loans, including the recording of library book stocks; but without further investigation I cannot yet say whether it would be the most economical method, which of various ways of using it would be best, what effect it would have on arrangements for dealing with categories of books not handled on the computer, or whether the bodies concerned would be ready to co-operate. These questions are all being pursued.

Mr. Boyden: In this state of uncertainty, will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that if he gets the Public Libraries Bill fairly soon, he will not use this computer delay as an excuse for not getting on with the cataloguing?

Sir E. Boyle: I can tell the hon. Gentleman that it will take about six months to clear up the technical points that I have mentioned, and I hope that we shall have the Public Libraries Bill well before then.

Independent Schools

Sir B. Janner: asked the Minister of Education if he is aware that any person may open a private school without inquiry as to his qualifications or background; and whether he will seek to amend the law in this respect.

Sir E. Boyle: Under the provisions of Part III of the Education Act, 1944, all independent schools must be registered with the Registrar of Independent Schools. Registration is refused if the person seeking to open such a school is already disqualified by an unconditional Order from being the proprietor of an independent school or from being a teacher in any school. I have, moreover, powers to disqualify, subject to appeal, any person who I am satisfied is not a proper person to be the proprietor of an independent school from so acting. I do not think that the law needs amendment in the way suggested.

Sir B. Janner: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his reply. Is he aware

that quite recently there was a case in which a person, who had posed as a priest and who had been sent to prison for 12 months, opened a school without any of the parents having this knowledge, and that he had to close the school when this was found out? Can the right hon. Gentleman say how such an occasion could arise without the intervention of the Ministry of Education?

Sir E. Boyle: If the hon. Gentleman will send me details of that case, I shall certainly look into it. Section 71, which was put into effect when my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council was Minister in 1957, is an effective Section, and I believe that on the whole it operates efficiently in the public interest.

Sir B. Janner: Would the right hon. Gentleman say, if such a case did arise, as I am assured it did, how this was possible? Is it due to the fact that proper investigation was not made into the background of the individual who applied to open the school?

Sir E. Boyle: I must ask to be excused from commenting on a particular case when I have not the details before me.

School Transport

Sir H. Harrison: asked the Minister of Education whether he will consider reducing the limit of two miles before the school bus system operates in remote rural areas, where there is no form of public transport.

Sir E. Boyle: Local education authorities have power to provide, or assist with, school transport for children who live within statutory walking distance if they consider that the circumstances justify it. This must remain a matter for their discretion.

Sir H. Harrison: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply, which I think we all know. Would it not be very helpful if he would give a further directive to local authorities, particularly now that the older children cannot take the 5 or 6-year-olds as they go to the secondary modern or grammar schools? Nearly all these mothers, who live just under two miles away, take their children on bicycles, often with a younger child as well, and it is a very difficult task for them.

Sir E, Boyle: The present arrangements are sufficiently flexible to allow local authorities to deal with the matter, but I will certainly consider the point that my hon. and gallant Friend has made.

Mr. Snow: Would the right hon. Gentleman look very carefully at what his hon. and gallant Friend has said? It may well be that local education authorities have not recently surveyed the traffic problems in some of the rural areas, and the anxiety to which many parents are being subjected is becoming very serious indeed.

Teachers' Salaries (Negotiating Machinery)

Mrs. White: asked the Minister of Education what progress has been made with the consideration of negotiating machinery for the remuneration of teachers.

Mr. Lubbock: asked the Minister of Education what progress has been made with his discussions with the parties concerned on the negotiating machinery for teachers' salaries.

Sir E. Boyle: I hope, by the end of this month, to put proposals to the local authority and teacher associations concerned so that joint discussions can be resumed.

Mrs. White: Is the Minister aware that this will be welcomed? Would not he agree that a very long time has elapsed since what is called the first round of discussions, which I think was concluded by midsummer last year? There has been a growing feeling within the profession that, if it is to obtain the fundamental review of salary structures which has been agreed upon, this matter of negotiating machinery must be concluded very rapidly indeed, and there is a growing impression that the Minister has been running away from it.

Sir E. Boyle: I can assure the hon. Lady and the House that it remains the Government's firm intention that new arrangements for settling teachers' salaries shall be introduced in time to negotiate salary scales to replace the present scales which are operative to March, 1965.

Mr. Lubbock: Does the Minister recognise that if there is to be this

fundamental review, which the Burnham Committee would have undertaken, much more time will be necessary and that normally, in order to make a salary increase effective in 1965, discussion should start at Easter this year, and that it is therefore very important that this new negotiating machinery should be set up at once? Is it not true that the Minister has not seen representatives of the teachers since last July, and is he satisfied that adequate evidence has been taken from them as to the form of this new negotiating machinery?

Sir E. Boyle: I did not complete what is called the first round quite as soon as last July. During the first round no basic pattern emerged which promised to be acceptable at once to all the interests, and that is why it has taken some time to consider how best to present the issues for the second round.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: Will it be the responsibility of the Minister to bring to the notice of any new negotiating body the Newsom recommendation concerning special allowances to bring about staffing stability in certain areas?

Sir E. Boyle: I think it would be making a very big assumption to say at this stage what will be my responsibility in any new arrangements.

Independent Schools (Teachers)

Mrs. White: asked the Minister of Education if he will seek power to require independent schools, where appropriate, to accept the same quota for teachers as is imposed on maintained schools.

Sir E. Boyle: No, Sir. The quota system applies to areas, not to individual schools, and it does not aim to reduce staffing ratios but to restrain increases in schools in the more fortunate areas until the worse off areas have improved their position. In 1960 my predecessor appealed to the independent schools to restrain their demands for teachers and since then their staffing standards have not materially changed.

Mrs. White: Would not the Minister recognise that there is a grave sense of injustice among those local authorities who feel that they are restrained in their recruitment of teachers when


they know that within their own area—for example, the London County Council—there are many independent schools which are not so restrained at a time when the shortage of teachers is very acute?

Sir E. Boyle: The hon. Lady is asking now about a more general point, to which I would gladly reply that we are very ready to consider whether it may be useful for me to approach the independent schools again, as my predecessor did in 1960. I was making the point that we cannot apply the quota system to the independent schools, because the quota system applies to areas and not to individual schools.

Mr. Jeger: Should not the right hon. Gentleman try to raise the standard of the maintained schools to that of the independent schools, rather than bring the standard of the independent schools down to his own?

Sir E. Boyle: I welcome what the hon. Gentleman has said. It has been precisely with that aim in view that I have made a number of speeches on this subject. It was clearly reasonable in 1960, when we were anticipating the year of intermission, for my predecessor to take the initiative which he did. I have said that I am prepared to consider whether a similar approach might be useful again.

School Building, West Riding

Mr. Wainwright: asked the Minister of Education how much money will be allocated to the West Riding County Council for school building purposes for the years 1964–65, 1965–66, 1966–67, and 1967–68, respectively.

Sir E. Boyle: The authority's major building programme for 1964–65 will amount to approximately £1·6 million. I am now considering the authority's proposals for the three following years, and I expect to be able to make an announcement within the next month or two.

Mr. Wainwright: Will the right hon. Gentleman take into account the fact that the present allocation to the West Riding County Council is grossly insufficient, and that if no greater amount of money is allocated to it there will be an abandonment of many building

projects in the West Riding, which will be detrimental to the children there? Will he when he gives the new estimates take into account subsidence, and building cost increases which, I understand, have been 20 per cent. or more during the last four years or so?

Sir E. Boyle: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the West Riding allocation for 1965–66, for example, will be greater than it was in 1964–65. In fact over the five years, the West Riding has had £13 million and 44 major improvement projects, which, I think, is not too bad. I think that one must judge this over a term of years and not by just one particular year.

Handicapped Children (Maintenance Grants)

Mr. Wainwright: asked the Minister of Education what decision he has now reached on whether to introduce legislation whereby parents of handicapped children are able to apply for a maintenance grant when the child has reached the age of 15 years.

Sir E. Boyle: I have nothing at present to add to the Answer I gave the hon. Gentleman on 19th December last.

Mr. Wainwright: That is a very poor Answer. Has the Minister no compassion for the parents and these children? Does not he agree that handicapped schoolchildren must have at least the same consideration as normal children? In fact, should not they have greater consideration because of their handicap?

Sir E. Boyle: I assure the hon. Member that handicapped children, who are a most important category, now receive a greater share of the national resources in real terms than they did five or ten years ago. This is rising all the time. I do not see any likelihood of being able to introduce legislation on this subject during the present Session.

Mr. Hannan: Is the Minister aware that the Secretary of State for Scotland, in reply to a Question of mine on this subject about a year ago, seemed to indicate the possibility of introducing legislation? He said that this question would be looked at when a suitable opportunity for amending legislation presented itself and that this would require to be on a United Kingdom


basis? Surely the Minister appreciates that there is a discrimination against these children, who are required to attend school until 16 years of age and receive no grant, whereas ordinary children receive grant after the statutory school leaving age of 15 if the circumstances of the home justify it? Will the right hon. Gentleman look at this matter again? It is a small one, but it has very great human import.

Sir E. Boyle: If the hon. Member will look at my Answer and the answer which I gave to the first supplementary question, he will see that I was careful to use the words "at present" and "during the present Session". There is no difference between the Secretary of State for Scotland and myself on this subject. It is just a question of timing.

Mr. Willey: Would not the Minister agree that there is a very powerful case for reviewing the whole question of maintenance allowances? Will he give an assurance that this will be done?

Sir E. Boyle: Authorities have had complete freedom on maintenance allowances generally since the general grant was introduced.

Dr. King: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that every education authority, and indeed himself, have declared that this is an anomaly and an injustice? Will he consider bringing in a simple, single-Clause Bill, which would have the support of the whole House and would be passed very quickly?

Sir E. Boyle: As I said when I last answered Questions on this subject, I thought that pupils in special schools benefited in other ways. I doubt whether serious hardship occurs, but I will naturally take into account the strong views which have been expressed this afternoon.

Mr. Wainwright: In view of the very unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I give notice that I will raise this matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible moment.

Smoking and Consumption of Alcohol

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Minister of Education to what extent attention is drawn in schools to the danger of

smoking and the personal and social liabilities arising from the early consumption of alcoholic drinks.

Sir E. Boyle: I do not prescribe what is to be taught in schools; but my Department's pamphlet on "Health Education" is widely used in teacher training colleges and schools, and chapter 13 deals with the use and abuse of drugs, alcohol and tobacco.

Mr. Sorensen: Is the Minister aware that, while much is being done, very rightly, to dissuade school children from smoking, nevertheless the whole emphasis recently seems to have been on the danger of smoking, with the result that many children are growing up assuming that smoking is far more perilous than drink, whereas the social damage of excessive drinking is far greater?

Sir E. Boyle: I do not want in any way to weaken the force of public feeling about smoking in view of the evidence recently published. However, if the hon. Member reads the pamphlet "Health Education", he will see that a considerable amount of space is devoted to alcohol.

Mr. Woodburn: Will the Minister look with favour on the possibility of propaganda or at least education by outstanding athletes, because this positive way of keeping healthy is, perhaps, much more successful than the negative way of simply saying. "Don't". Children would respond to appeals from athletes to keep their bodies healthy.

Grammar School Education, Essex (Independent Schools)

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Minister of Education how many children in the county of Essex qualified for grammar school education but are attending independent schools for this purpose; what is the number of pupils in those schools whose fees are being paid from public funds; and what are the regulations determining the entrance of those children into those schools.

Sir E. Boyle: The authority's records do not show how many children qualified for selective education are attending independent schools, but 2,019 are at present receiving help with fees,


in whole or in part. Under the authority's regulations a little under two-thirds of these children have places which make good deficiences in the authority's own provision, while the remainder are helped on an income scale to go to independent schools of their parents' choice.

Mr. Sorensen: Is the number increasing or decreasing? Have parents the option in certain circumstances of sending their children to a more convenient independent school than to a grammar school? Is the whole question of the relationship between State schools and independent schools now open for revision?

Sir E. Boyle: I have not the precise figures, but the authority is taking up only a small number of what one might call new "deficiency places", because it now generally has adequate provision of its own, although this does not affect holders of existing places. I should not feel justified in criticising the Essex local authority for the arrangement which it makes.

Youth Centre and Gymnasium, Derby

Mr. P. Noel-Baker: asked the Minister of Education whether he will now give authority for the expenditure required for the building of premises for a county youth centre and gymnasium at the Littleover County Secondary School, Derby, the construction of which has been required since 1951 and which has been constantly postponed by the reduction of money allowed for the Derbyshire authority's capital minor works programme.

Sir E. Boyle: I will consider the youth wing at this school along with the other proposals put to me by the authority for its 1965–66 youth service building programme, but I must have regard to the authority's own order of priorities. As to the gymnasium, it is for the authority to decide what projects it wishes to undertake within the annual allocation allowed it for minor works.

Mr. Noel-Baker: With so small an allocation, it is impossible for the authorities to make this gymnasium. If the gymnasium is not made, the school will be seriously handicapped and the future

of an important youth centre will be in danger. Is the Minister aware that in this very Conservative part of my constituency there is keen resentment against the Government which I am doing my best to fan?

Sir E. Boyle: The right hon. Member's idealistic sympathies are well known in the House. Even if I did allocate minor works projects from the centre, I should not be influenced by his last point. However, local authorities have had £2 million more for minor works this year compared with last year. I have had to give priority to the authorities with the biggest population problems. Derbyshire's population has in fact been falling slightly.

Mr. Noel-Baker: In view of the nature of the reply, I will do my best to raise this matter on the Adjournment.

Teacher Training and Practice

Mr. J. Wells: asked the Minister of Education what steps he is taking to establish a closer integration between teacher training and the practice of teaching.

Sir E. Boyle: Educational theory and subject study are already closely integrated with teaching practice which occupies about one-seventh of the three-year course of training. Links between colleges and schools in all sorts of ways are increasing.

Mr. Wells: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the considerable volume of criticism by recently trained teachers that too few of the instructors at their teacher-training colleges had any experience of practical teaching? Will a closer integration on that level be considered?

Sir E. Boyle: I should not accept too easily generalisations on this subject. Clearly, the burden of teaching practice will grow and that is why I have asked the institutes of education to survey the likely position in their own areas for the years to come as the training colleges continue to grow so rapidly.

Mr. Sydney Irvine: I recognise that there is close co-operation between many colleges and schools, but will the Minister consider encouraging the establishment of experimental schools attached to training colleges and institutes of education


which could be used for this purpose and a wide range of other purposes in the work of these colleges?

Sir E. Boyle: I should like to see that question on the Order Paper. However, clearly there is room for experiments. For example, 11 training colleges have been invited to experiment with the use of closed circuit television to enable students to observe classes of school children and the practices of the best teachers.

English Language

Mr. Woodburn: asked the Minister of Education what progress has been made in the improved methods of teaching English and in the discussions with the United States on the co-ordination of the development of the language.

Sir E. Boyle: The British Council, in consultation with my right hon. Friend the Secretary for Technical Cooperation, is installing about 30 language laboratories and is preparing special material for them. The Council is also helping research projects being undertaken at the Universities of Birmingham and Sheffield and by the National Foundation for Educational Research, and is collaborating with the British Broadcasting Corporation in the production of films for beginners and for teacher training. New courses in the teaching of English as a foreign language have been established at the University College of Bangor and at Manchester University. There is continuing liaison between the British Council and the Center of Applied Linguistics in Washington.

Mr. Woodburn: I appreciate the steps which have been taken already, but will the Minister look further into the possibility of simplifying English even a little, both for the sake of our own children and for the sake of people abroad trying to learn English? I have received quite a number of letters from people in Germany and other countries who are trying to simplify English in teaching their pupils. Surely if people abroad and in the Colonies want to make English a universal language, this country should do something to help them and make it easier for them to learn it.

Sir E. Boyle: The right hon. Member will realise that much work is being done in the co-ordination of the development of out language. I should not like to give my views on the simplification of English, which is a difficult subject, least of all at Question Time.

Mr. Bourne-Arton: Would my right hon. Friend agree that it would be a great help to the development of English if people could learn to read it with greater ease and pleasure? If so, can he say when he will be ready to give his views on the initial teaching methods of my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Sir J. Pitman)?

Sir E. Boyle: That is another question. I hope, however, soon to have something to say to the House on this subject.

Mr. Woodburn: Is it not a tragic reflection on our language that probably not one Member of Parliament could win a spelling bee in his own language? [HON. MEMBERS: "Shame."]

Swimming Pools

Sir B. Janner: asked the Minister of Education how many swimming pools have been built by each of the education authorities in England and Wales, respectively; and what encouragement is given by his Department to the further provision of swimming pools in State-aided schools.

Sir E. Boyle: The information is not available. I welcome the increase which is taking place in facilities for teaching swimming but it is a matter for individual local education authorities to decide whether a swimming pool should be provided within the cost limits for a new school.

Sir B. Janner: Why is not the information available? If the swimming pools are there, surely the information should be available. Secondly, what kind of encouragement is the Minister giving to the various authorities to build these important amenities in their schools? Is he taking any steps in this direction?

Sir E. Boyle: I collect information on the number of covered and heated swimming baths which are built, but not on the number of outdoor pools. There


has been some encouragement as, since 1958, 56 covered and heated swimming baths have been built as part of major projects at maintained schools in England and Wales and another 51 are under construction or approved.

Mr. Wainwright: Does not the Minister realise that swimming is important for the young boys and girls and that the approaching summer is likely to bring serious loss of life because children cannot swim? Will the Minister give further consideration to the suggestion that all secondary modern schools should have swimming pools attached?

Sir E. Boyle: I agree that it is important that children should be taught to swim. It is not always necessary, however, to build a conventional swimming bath. Many successful experiments have been carried out in the smaller prefabricated type of bath.

School Building, London

Mr. Lipton: asked the Minister of Education what further increases he will now make in school building in London.

Sir E. Boyle: I am now considering the London County Council's proposals for the school building programmes 1965–68 and expect to make an announcement within the next month or two.

Mr. Lipton: Is the Minister aware that, thanks to inadequate Government provision in past years, there are still quite a number of slum schools in the London area, dismal, decrepit and disheartening for pupils and teachers alike? Does it not smack a little too much of electioneering now to say that a few days before the General Election the Minister will announce a vast new increase in the provision of schools in London?

Sir E. Boyle: It smacks not of electioneering, but merely of sensible administration, to give sufficient warning of the schools for the 1965–66 programme. I was going to suggest a word about the total, but in view of what the hon. Member has asked I will not.

Research

Mr. Merlyn Rees: asked the Minister of Education what steps are taken

to bring to the notice of practising teachers the results of the research work of all kinds sponsored by his Department.

Sir E. Boyle: The first projects financed from my Research Fund did not start until 1962 and none has yet been completed. I shall certainly take steps, by periodical bulletins, by short courses and through Her Majesty's Inspectorate to see that the results of research are brought to the attention of serving teachers and to local authorities as soon as they are available.

Mr. Rees: Will the Minister consider publishing a quarterly synopsis of research information on the lines of that done by D.S.I.R. and circulating it to the relevant schools? May I suggest broadening it to include the results of research in schools and institutes of education, because there is a problem of the results of a great deal of the research which is done not percolating through to those who have to use it?

Sir E. Boyle: The hon. Member, who has raised a valuable point, may be glad to know that the March edition of my Department's "Reports on Education" will be devoted to the subject of educational research and will include a description of current projects.

Newsom Committee (Recommendations)

Mr. Dalyell: asked the Minister of Education what steps he has taken, since he decided to raise the school-leaving age, to set in motion a study of the detailed recommendations of the Newsom Committee and their policy implications.

Sir E. Boyle: The recommendations and their policy implications have been under study in my Department since the Report was published. Particular attention is now being given to those recommendations which relate to the implications for the curriculum of the decision to raise the school leaving age. In the expectation that a Schools Council for the Curriculum and Examinations will be set up later this year, proposals for its consideration are now being prepared.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL AIR FORCE

R.A.F. Policemen, Nicosia (Incident)

Mr. Barnett: asked the Secretary of State for Air if he will make a statement about the circumstances in which four Royal Air Force policemen in Nicosia were ordered to enter the city unarmed and with no senior noncommissioned officer in charge on Christmas Eve, 1963.

The Under-Secretary of State for Air (Mr. Julian Ridsdale): These men, who were corporals, were sent in to try to evacuate the wife and six children of an airman who had been wounded earlier in the day. The rescue attempt was delayed as long as possible in the hope of a cease-fire coming into force. The party came under fire before it could find the family and was immediately recalled by radio. On the way back, the party came under fire again and three members were wounded. The civil police and hospital authorities were unable to help and they were rescued by a Royal Air Force ambulance under escort.
I regret very much that casualties should have been incurred but I am sure that all concerned were doing their best under very difficult circumstances.

Mr. Barnett: In thanking the Under Secretary for that statement, which will go some way towards reassuring the parents and families of the airmen concerned, may I ask him to look further into the question of why this Land Rover went with no arms and, therefore, the airmen concerned were unable to defend themselves? Secondly, they were sent after dark, and thirdly, why was no senior n.c.o. or officer in control of the party?

Mr. Ridsdale: It is easy to be wise after these events. This happened at the beginning of the troubles. The arming of policemen is a matter for decision by the local Royal Air Force authorities, but I think that the carriage of arms would undoubtedly have aggravated the incident, which occurred in the no-man's-land between the Greek and Turkish lines. The announcement of a cease-fire had been expected and the operation was delayed for this reason. Manpower resources were fully

extended at the time and it was not surprising in the circumstances for a junior n.c.o. to be put in charge of the party.

R.A.F. Station, Leeming (Petrol Filling Station)

Mr. Turton: asked the Secretary of State for Air why he has allowed the Navy, Army and Air Force Institute to install a petrol filling station at Leeming Aerodrome where there are a number of local garages giving similar service within easy access to the station and offering a 24-hour service.

Mr. Ridsdale: Because there was a demand from the Royal Air Force personnel there for petrol supplies to be more readily accessible. At present, the nearest local garage is some four miles away and the journey involves two right hand turns across A.1, which is a clearway at this point.

Mr. Turton: Will my hon. Friend go to the place in question and correct the information given in that reply? Is he aware that there are two petrol stations without crossing A.1 and that there are four petrol stations in the near vicinity? Rill my hon. Friend reconsider this decision in view of the fact that four tradesmen are doing this trade and he is subjecting them to State-subsidised competition, which is extremely unfair to them?

Mr. Ridsdale: I assure my right hon. Friend that I have examined the position on the map. I am sure that my right hon. Friend would wish to bear in mind the welfare interests of the 450 Royal Air Force men at Leeming, that N.A.A.F.I. sales are restricted to personnel and their families on the station and there is, therefore, no question of competing with normal civil trade in the area.

Mr. Turton: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I give notice that I will raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOME DEPARTMENT

Miss Pat Arrowsmith

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will advise the use of the Royal


Prerogative of Mercy in the case of Miss Pat Arrowsmith, who was fined on grounds of obstruction for holding a meeting near Liverpool docks and is refusing to pay the fine and the £25 costs awarded against her.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Henry Brooke): Miss Arrowsmith's conviction was upheld by the Divisional Court on Appeal. On present information I can see no ground for recommending the exercise of the Prerogative of Mercy.

Mr. Allaun: Is the Home Secretary aware that the fine has been paid since my Question was originally tabled, and paid by an anonymous source? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the more serious matter that the legal costs which remain unpaid were awarded personally against Miss Arrowsmith by the Lord Chief Justice although she had been granted legal aid with a nil contribution? Is this in order?

Mr. Brooke: Decisions of the courts are not a matter for me. The question of enforcement of costs is a matter for the local authority.

Mr. S. Silverman: If a series of decisions in the courts appeared to show an unexplained discrimination—unless the discrimination were on political grounds—would there not be a case for the Home Secretary to intervene?

Mr. Brooke: No. It is most important that the Home Secretary should not intervene in decisions taken by a court after hearing all the evidence in the case.

Mr. Frank Allaun: Yes, but is the Home Secretary aware that there happens to be a similar case, again involving an instruction of a nil contribution certificate, where the legal costs have been personally awarded against the prosecuted person?

Mr. Brooke: These are not matters for me.

Former Colonial Police Officers

Sir J. Lucas: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what facilities are being given to enable police officers of British nationality, now being declared redundant by new African

States, to continue their career in this country.

Mr. Brooke: Under an amendment recently made to the Police Regulations, former colonial police officers are enabled to count their overseas service to obtain enhanced starting pay on appointment as a constable in a home police force, subject to the service being certified by the Secretary for Technical Co-operation.

Sir J. Lucas: Would my right hon. Friend also give opportunity for officers to serve in the Prison Service? Sometimes it is difficult for an officer who has been in a certain rank to get any similar position or higher in the police force.

Mr. Brooke: If my hon. Friend would like to put down a Question about the Prison Service I shall be very glad to answer it.

Mr. Fletcher: In principle, would the right hon. Gentleman say that he will provide every possible facility for these people to have useful employment when they come back to this country?

Mr. Brooke: Yes. I have answered this question, but service in a colonial police force may be very different from the kind of experience required for service in a police force in this country, and I do not think that one can take it for granted that the one is a natural qualification for the other.

Elections (Political Expenditure)

Mr. R. Edwards: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will amend the Act relating to political expenditure for election purposes so as to prevent business undertakings circulating literature for Members of Parliament, the administrative postal casts of which are not included as an election expense.

Mr. Brooke: The Representation of the People Act, 1949, already applies to expenditure incurred by or on behalf of a candidate on the issue of advertisements, circulars or publications with a view to promoting his election. I am not aware of any defect in the existing law in this respect, but if the hon.


Member will let me have particulars of what he has in mind I will consider them.

Mr. Edwards: Is the Home Secretary aware that I have in my hand a letter signed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) addressed to thousands of new electors in his constituency the postal cost and administration of which was the responsibility of a local firm? The envelope bears the frank of a firm in Wolverhampton, along with an advertisement "Fulwood for tyres". Is this not a hidden political subsidy, and if it is general throughout the country should not such industrial expenditure be included in electoral costs?

Mr. Brooke: The hon. Member has not stated what is in this communication, which I have not seen. We are all at liberty to do our work as Members of Parliament, but the law says that if expenditure is incurred with a view to promoting one's election at a future election that has to be included in electoral expenses. It is, of course, for a court to decide whether any particular expenditure is caught by that or not.

Miss Bacon: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that, whilst some expenditure may be legal, nevertheless it is making a mockery of the election law if we have a maximum legal amount which candidates can spend and the law can be bent in this way? Does he not realise that at the last General Election a mockery was made of this law by the fact that hundreds of thousands of pounds were spent by business firms throughout this country?

Mr. Brooke: I cannot accept that, and there is a remedy with the courts, and it must be for a court to determine election law, when there comes down at some point a chopper which decides what is expenditure incurred by somebody or other with a view to promoting his election. Quite obviously I am not in a position to pass any judgment on this particular document which I have not seen.

Miss Bacon: Has the right hon. Gentleman been in touch with the Chan-

cellor of the Exchequer to see whether this expenditure is allowed for business expenses?

Mr. Brooke: That, unquestionably, is not a matter for me. Neither my right hon. Friend the Chancellor nor I have seen this document yet.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: On a point of order. Is it not the usual practice, Mr. Speaker, to give notice to a right hon. Member whose actions are to be called to account? Would you ask the hon. Member for Bilston (Mr. R. Edwards) whether any such notice was given to the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell)?

Mr. Speaker: However that may be, it raises no point of order for me.

Mr. Edwards: In view of the unsatisfactory reply, I beg leave to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND (MIGRATION)

Mr. W. Hamilton: asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the continuing rate of migration from Scotland, he will review the co-ordinating machinery designed to deal with this problem.

The Prime Minister (Sir Alec Douglas-Home): The co-ordinating machinery for regional development, of which migration is one aspect, is working well.

Mr. W. Hamilton: Is the Prime Minister aware teat we can only assume from that Answer that the co-ordinating machinery is working to increase the rate of migration since in the last five years, since 1958–59, migration from Scotland has gone up by 70 per cent., from 20,000 to 34,000? Can he give any guarantee at all to Scotland that the co-ordinating machinery and the policies which have been announced in the immediate past will reduce these numbers substantially in the very near future?

The Prime Minister: Yes, I very much hope they will. That is the whole purpose of our regional development system.

Mr. Hamilton: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what policies have been pursued in the last five years which have increased the figure by 70 per cent.?

The Prime Minister: I think everybody knows that this migration from Scotland to the South is a very serious matter of which we have got to take notice. I would not try for one moment to minimise that. Certainly not. But we have introduced the most vigorous policies to deal with it.

Oral Answers to Questions — SALMON POACHING

Mr. Wyatt: asked the Prime Minister whether he will advise the appointment of a Royal Commission to examine the ways in which the English law relating to salmon poaching can be made equivalent to the Scottish in the provision of penalties.

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. The Government have under consideration the Report of the Bledisloe Committee which reviewed the whole of the English salmon and freshwater fisheries law, including the question of penalties for salmon poaching.

Mr. Wyatt: Is not this rather disappointing from the Prime Minister? After all, the last time he was here it was demonstrated that he was the greatest living expert on the subject of salmon poaching. Would he not like to leave some mark which will go down into the history of his administration? After all, the Bathurst Committee reported that these penalties ought to be raised. Will not the Prime Minister be letting down his English friends with fishing rights by leaving them in a worse position than his Scottish friends?

The Prime Minister: If the hon. Member wants to know my prowess as a poacher he must put down a Question.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Emrys Hughes.

Mr. Wyatt: Would the Prime Minister repeat that? I could not hear it.

The Prime Minister: I have answered the Question. I said we are considering the Bledisloe Report, and in that recommendations are made about penalties for poaching in England. When we have made our decision we will announce it to the House.

Mr. Wyatt: rose—

Hon. Members: Sit down.

Mr. Speaker: I called Mr. Emrys Hughes.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is the Prime Minister aware that there is a deep, historic division of opinion in Scotland whether the landlord has the right to own the salmon in the river or whether the poacher has an equal right, and will he not take an objective view and hand over salmon fishing rights to the Scottish Tourist Board to attract more tourists to Scotland?

The Prime Minister: I note what the hon. Member has said.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONALISED INDUSTRIES (FINANCIAL OBJECTIVES)

Mr. Lubbock: asked the Prime Minister if, in order to ensure co-ordination of economic policies, he will instruct Ministers responsible for the nationalised industries not to set profitability targets which imply increases of more than 3½ per cent. per annum in their charges.

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. The financial objectives agreed with these industries are intended to secure a reasonable return on the capital invested in them. It is for the boards concerned to decide how best to attain the objectives, bearing in mind the importance of increasing productivity and keeping costs down.

Mr. Lubbock: Does not the Prime Minister realise that it is almost impossible to get a national incomes policy which will be accepted by the public as a whole if charges for electricity and gas and fares of public transport undertakings are to increase by amounts greater than the permitted increases in income? Does he not think this is a very bad example to set to private industries? Does he appreciate that many of the increases proposed by the nationalised industries bear particularly hard on those living on small fixed incomes?

The Prime Minister: I have already said that I am sure that the boards of the nationalised industries do their best to keep their charges down but, like any other industry, they are faced with increased costs.

Oral Answers to Questions — CABINET PAPERS

Mr. Duffy: asked the Prime Minister if he will arrange for a relaxation of the 50-year rule governing access by serious historians to Cabinet papers.

The Prime Minister: Parliament gave statutory effect to this rule as recently as 1958 in order to safeguard our system of collective Ministerial responsibility by ensuring that a Government's confidential discussions should not be disclosed prematurely. I do not think that Parliament would wish that safeguard to be weakened.

Mr. Duffy: Is the Prime Minister aware that it will be 1967 before access is granted to all historians to Cabinet papers, and then only with respect to the single year 1917? Is the right hon. Gentleman really convinced that some reduction in this 50-year lapse period cannot be granted without seriously impairing the administrative or constitutional practices?

The Prime Minister: I think we can argue about this for a long time. Only six years ago Parliament put this into a Measure, the Public Records Act, 1958, and I do not think this is a matter which we can go on considering at three-or four-Year intervals.

Oral Answers to Questions — EAST AFRICA

Mr. Fell: asked the Prime Minister if he wilt seek to call a meeting of Commonwealth Prime Ministers to discuss a concerted plan of action to deal with the imminent threat to the rule of law in Africa, in view of the danger this presents to British colonies, British citizens and British troops now in Africa.

The Prime Minister: Our first step must be to have discussions with the Commonwealth Governments directly concerned in East Africa. My right hon. Friend the Commonwealth Secretary proposes to visit those countries in about 10 days' time for this purpose.

Mr. Fell: Does the Prime Minister agree that a major threat to world peace is contained in the constant and continuing contempt in which law and order are held and will he, because of this, invite the Commonwealth Defence Minis-

ters at least to a meeting to consider whether a Commonwealth defence force should not be formed, at any rate to deal with fire-brigade operations, and to do it urgently?

The Prime Minister: I think that if we are to have anything like that which my hon. Friend suggests, it should come later. I would rather my right hon. Friend had a chance of talking to the Governments of the East African countries before we took any further decisions.

Mr. Grimond: In view of this and other problems throughout the Commonwealth, can the right hon. Gentleman say whether he has come to a conclusion about a Commonwealth Prime Ministers' conference?

The Prime Minister: When I come to a conclusion about that, I will tell the right hon. Gentleman.

Oral Answers to Questions — MR. WINSTON FIELD (TALKS)

Mr. Stonehouse: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on his discussions with Mr. Winston Field; and whether he has accepted his demand for independence for Southern Rhodesia without an agreed revision of the Constitution.

The Prime Minister: My talks with Mr. Field were confidential, and I have nothing to add to what my right hon. Friend the Commonwealth Secretary told the House on 30th January.

Mr. Stonehouse: Is the Prime Minister aware that the situation in Southern Rhodesia is extremely serious and, in fact, dangerous; that hundreds have been arrested for political offences, that there is much seditious talk, some of which seems to be coming from some of the Ministers? What is the right hon. Gentleman doing about this? What has been the result of his talks with the Commonwealth Prime Ministers? Will the right hon. Gentleman consider calling a roundtable conference at which all the political parties can be represented, to try to reach some agreement on the next steps?

The Prime Minister: I am in full agreement with the hon. Member that we should try to reach full agreement on the


next step. I think it would be better for the time being to leave this to my right hon. Friend the Commonwealth Secretary and myself.

Mr. Turton: Would my right hon. Friend make it clear to the Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia that there are conditions under which Her Majesty's Government would grant independence to the present Rhodesian Government? Further, is my right hon. Friend aware that all in this country would deplore it if the Southern Rhodesian Government and country were forced into unconstitutional actions that took them outside the Commonwealth?

The Prime Minister: I hope that there would be no question of unconstitutional action—none at all. I think that everybody would certainly hope that. I think, as I have said, that as we are carrying on our conversations with Mr. Field, it would be better if I said nothing further now.

Mr. Wigg: Will the right hon. Gentleman note that the first call for unconstitutional action in violation of allegiance to the Sovereign comes from the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton)?

The Prime Minister: I shall certainly take note of nothing of the kind. My right hon. Friend said nothing of the sort.

Hon. Members: Withdraw.

Oral Answers to Questions — LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT, 1933 (SECTION 76)

Mr. Wigg: asked the Prime Minister whether he will inquire into the voting position of members of the Stourbridge Council who, because they are council house tenants, are prevented from voting on housing matters, with a view to consideration of the powers contained in Section 76(8) of the Local Government Act, 1933.

The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government has exercised these powers in the normal way in relation to the members concerned. He has given them dispensation to vote at meetings of committees where the conduct of business would otherwise have been

impeded, but not at meetings of the council where this situation has not arisen.

Mr. Wigg: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that the fact that council house tenants cannot take a full and active part in local government is exercising an inhibiting influence on councillors of all political denominations? Is it not time that the doctrine on which this practice is based was looked at again and brought up to date in the light of modern conditions?

The Prime Minister: I have no evidence—I have consulted my right hon. Friend, of course—that this practice is irksome to local authorities. My right hon. Friend exercises the dispensation fairly and very frequently for a member of a local council to speak. He is only prevented from voting when the matter directly affects his own pocket.

Mr. Wigg: Would the right hon. Gentleman consult the Home Secretary and ask him whether he recollects that a deputation came from Dudley, consisting of Conservative and Labour councillors, asking that the practice should be looked at again?

The Prime Minister: Yes, I dare say, but that does not argue that there is general discontent all over the country, important though Dudley is.

Oral Answers to Questions — LAOS, CAMBODIA AND VIETNAM

Mr. P. Noel-Baker: asked the Prime Minister whether he will propose to President Johnson that a conference should be called in Geneva in the very early future to consider the situation in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam are entirely separate cases, and the conference proposed by the Cambodian Government is intended to deal with Cambodian problems only.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Can the Prime Minister tell us more about President Johnson's statement at his Press conference that he would sympathetically consider the neutralisation of Vietnam if it included both north and south? Since Britain has very important political and economic interests in this area,


will the right hon. Gentleman take some initiative to secure an end to the disastrous fighting in South Vietnam and to bring real neutrality to Cambodia and Laos?

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman will know full well that the first thing that would have to be done before Vietnam could be made neutral and unaligned would be to stop the continuous infiltration of Communist forces from North Vietnam.

Mr. Brockway: The right hon. Gentleman has said that Cambodia and Vietnam are different problems. Is it not the case that the delay in calling the Geneva Powers together to consider Cambodia is very largely influenced by the situation in Vietnam?

The Prime Minister: I do not think so. I would rather like notice of that question. There are other matters which have to be considered, such as the relations between Cambodia and Thailand as well as South Vietnam.

Mr. H. Wilson: Can the Prime Minister say whether he agreed with the recent statement of the Foreign Secretary about the desirability of neutralisation of the countries of South-East Asia, and whether he urged this proposal on President Johnson when he was in Washington?

The Prime Minister: Desirability is one thing; the way to achieve it is another. As I said to the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mr. P. Noel-Baker), as long as there is continuous infiltration by armed members of North Vietnam into South Vietnam, neutrality is impossible.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Is there any hope of stopping that infiltration except by some new arrangement which will cover all these territories together? Does the Prime Minister recall that the status of all three was, in fact, dealt with by the conference of 1954?

The Prime Minister: Not only is there very serious infiltration into South Vietnam from North Vietnam, but also there is increasingly serious infiltration from North Vietnam into Laos. Our whole efforts are being directed to stop this, but it is Communist directed and very difficult to do.

ZANZIBAR

Mr. Bottomley: (by Private Notice)asked the secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations whether he will make a statement about the request of the Zanzibar Government for the United Kingdom High Commissioner to leave the country.

The Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and for the Colonies (Mr. Duncan Sandys): Her Majesty's Government have been giving very careful consideration to the question of recognising the new régime in Zanzibar. This has necessarily taken a certain amount of time, for two reasons. The first is that the internal position after the revolution has been somewhat obscure. The second is that, since Zanzibar is a member of the Commonwealth, the recognition of a new Government is a matter of more than usual significance and has necessitated the fullest consultation with other Commonwealth countries.
I had hoped that in the meantime the British High Commissioner and his staff would have been allowed to remain in Zanzibar. However, yesterday Mr. Karume, the President of the Revolutionary Council, asked the High Commissioner to leave the island today.
I at once sent Mr. Karume a personal message explaining that Commonwealth consultations were proceeding and that an early decision on recognition might be expected. However, he replied that he did not feel able to reconsider his request that the British High Commission should be withdrawn until such time as recognition had been accorded.
Although I regret this development, and would have appreciated a more understanding attitude, this is a decision which any Administration in that situation is at liberty to take. The British High Commissioner and his staff left Zanzibar this morning and have arrived in Dar-es-Salaam.
There has been a long and happy connection between Britain and Zanzibar and it is our wish that this should not be interrupted. This same feeling is, I know, shared by Mr. Karume, who has expressed the desire that Zanzibar should remain a member of the Commonwealth.

Mr. Bottomley: Is it not shocking that Her Majesty's representative should be asked to leave a Commonwealth country? Has this ever happened before? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we on this side of the House feel that the responsibility is that of Her Majesty's Government because of their dilatory action?
Is there any truth in the newspaper reports that the Prime Minister discussed the matter first with President Johnson in Washington? If so, why were not the Commonwealth countries consulted earlier? Since five African Commonwealth countries have recognised Zanzibar, including the three most closely affected, why could not Her Majesty's Government have done so earlier?

Mr. Speaker: Order. The request to confirm a newspaper report, for which the Minister is not responsible, is out of order.

Mr. Sandys: Commonwealth consultations began long before my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister went to Washington. This is quite a difficult and complicated matter. The facts are not very certain and there has had to be a considerable amount of consultation. Of course, I deplore the action that has been taken, but I think that, if criticism is to be made, it is not to be addressed to Her Majesty's Government, who have been doing what is necessary and what is proper in this situation.

Mr. H. Wilson: While associating the Opposition with the right hon. Gentleman's statement deploring the suddenness of the request to withdraw the High Commissioner, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman to tell the House what conversations the Prime Minister did have on this subject with President Johnson and whether an agreed solution has been reached between them on recognition of the new régime?

Mr. Sandys: As part of a review of many different subjects, this matter was, of course, touched upon in the talks between the Prime Minister and the President, as I think has become known. But there is no question of an agreed policy. We have to decide on our own relations with Commonwealth Governments and that is why we are in consulta

tion with Commonwealth countries on this matter. I hope that the consultations will be completed at a very early date and that we shall then be able to reach a decision.

Mr. Wilson: Has a decision been reached and indicated to the American Government? If it has, can the House be told?

Mr. Sandys: The American Government know exactly what I have told the House of Commons. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I spoke to the American Ambassador a few minutes before I came into the House because the United States consul in Zanzibar has also been asked to leave. I have told the American Government exactly what I have told the House, which is that we are engaged in consulting Commonwealth Governments and have not yet reached a decision.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many of us think that no blame whatever attaches to Her Majesty's Government for not rushing into recognition of this régime in Zanzibar? What British officials if any, still remain in Zanzibar and Pemba?

Mr. Sandys: The House may like to know how many British nationals still remain in Zanzibar. There are about 270 United Kingdom citizens of United Kingdom origin in Zanzibar, mostly men who remained there after the recent evacuation of most of the women and children. About 130 of them are serving in the Administration of Zanzibar and have been asked by the present régime to continue. They have been assured only today that they can count on safe conditions and I am assured that the situation there continues to be normal and calm.

Mr. Wade: While fully sharing the desire that Zanzibar should remain in the Commonwealth, may I ask whether there is not a very serious risk of getting the worst of both worlds by delay in recognition, since we lose the diplomatic link while, at the same time, playing into the hands of those who wish to create anti-British feeling in the island?

Mr. Sandys: Of course, we do not have a diplomatic link at a time when we do not recognise a Government and do have one when and if we recognise them.

Mr. F. M. Bennett: Since this clearly is a Commonwealth matter, can my right hon. Friend confirm that we are not by any means alone in taking a reasonable time to make up our minds about this and that a large number of other Commonwealth countries are taking precisely the same attitude?

Mr. Sandys: I think that it may interest the House to know which countries have recognised the new régime. As the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Bottomley) said, they include the three Commonwealth countries in East Africa—Tanganyika, Uganda and Kenya—and Ghana. In addition to these Commonwealth Governments, recognition has been accorded by Ethiopia, Guinea, Egypt, Israel, the Soviet Union, China, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Albania, East Germany, Cuba, North Vietnam, North Korea and Bulgaria.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: We must get on.

Mr. Warbey: Can the right hon Gentleman say why he omitted West Germany from that list? Can he say why, in the matter of Zanzibar, the British Government have applied principles totally different from those which they have applied in the last few months in South Vietnam where, following the lead of the American Government, they have twice recognised successor Governments within hours of military coups?

Mr. Sandys: We are adopting exactly the same criteria as in the case of recognising other new régimes. As I have explained to the House, the difference is that before recognising a new Commonwealth Government we feel it necessary to have very full consultations with other Commonwealth Governments. I did not mention West Germany because, I understand, it has not recognised.

Mr. H. Wilson: Does the right hon. Gentleman's latest answer mean that in this, as in all other questions, the criterion applied by the Government, and which has been applied many times to the Yemen, is simply whether a Government are in effective control of the country? Is that still the criterion as it has been applied in so many other

cases—that the decision is not taken on whether we like the colour of the Government or the colour or their eyes, or anything else? If this is the criterion, would he inform some of his hon. Friends behind him, so that they do not look at this matter purely in the terms of the prejudicial attitude of the list of countries which he read out?

Mr. Sandys: I can assure the right hon. Gentleman, as I have already assured the House, that we are applying the same criteria, which are broadly those which he has defined.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. H. Wilson: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he will state the business of the House for next week?

The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY, 24TH FEBRUARY—Supply [7th Allotted Day]: Committee stage of the Civil Estimates and Defence (Central) Estimate, Vote on Account, 1964–65, when, at the request of the Opposition, there will be a debate on the Provision for Science
Remaining stages of the Uganda Bill.
TUESDAY, 25TH FEBRUARY—Remaining stages of the Agriculture and Horticulture Bill, and of the Plant Varieties and Seeds Bill [Lords].
WEDNESDAY, 26TH FEBRUARY AND THURSDAY, 27TH FEBRUARY—Debate on Defence, on a Government Motion inviting the House to approve the White Paper (Command No. 2270).
At the end, on Wednesday, Motion on the White Fish Industry (Grants for Fishing Vessels and Engines) (Amendment) Scheme.
FRIDAY, 28TH FEBRUARY—Private Members' Bills.
MONDAY, 2ND MARCH—Proposed business will be: Supply [8th Allotted Day]: Navy Estimates, 1964–65, will be considered in Committee on Vote A.

Mr. Wilson: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware—and I ask this now for the convenience of the House—that on Monday we propose to


table an Amendment to the Vote on Account to provide for a token reduction in the provision for the Office of the Minister for Science, so as to enable the House to concentrate the debate on all questions affecting the Minister, including the proposed reorganisation scheme which has been announced by the Government?

Mr. Lipton: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that the four weeks are now up in which he promised to let us know about the resale price maintenance Bill? I appreciate that the Government may be in serious difficulty over this whole business, because of their lack of forethought, but will the right hon. and learned Gentleman now make a definite statement on the matter?

Mr. Lloyd: The Bill will certainly be introduced before I make my next business statement.

Mr. Shinwell: Has the attention of the right hon. and learned Gentleman been directed to a Motion relating to a request by myself that there should be referred to the Select Committee on Procedure, whether it exists or whether the Government contemplate reappointing it, the refusal of Mr. Speaker to allow Questions to be put to the Prime Minister as to his conduct both at home and abroad?
[That this House requests the Prime Minister to refer to the Select Committee on Procedure the refusal of Mr. Speaker to allow Questions to be placed on the Order Paper which refer to statements by the Prime Minister when not in the House of Commons, either at home or abroad.]

Mr. Lloyd: I have not had very long notice of this matter, but I will think it over.

Mr. Shinwell: Then I want to know when the right hon. and learned Gentleman will be in a position to inform the House, and particularly myself, when he proposes to refer this matter to the Select Committee.

Mr. Lloyd: I will give the right hon. Gentleman an answer when I have had time to think about it.

Mr. H. Wilson: While we recognise that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is slipping a little in the time table about the Bill on resale price maintenance, about which he has been so positive for four successive weeks, may I ask whether he will now tell us whether, in addition to tabling the Bill, which has now been promised for early next week, the Government intend to fulfil their undertaking to publish a White Paper on their whole attitude to the problems of monopolies?

Mr. Lloyd: Yes, Sir. The White Paper will not be published at the same time as the Bill is introduced, but, I hope, with not an undue interval afterwards.

Dame Irene Ward: Can my right hon. and learned Friend give me an assurance that the Bill for the abolition of resale price maintenance will have sufficient safeguards for small shopkeepers?

Mr. Lloyd: I do not think that that question arises on the statement of the business for next week.

Mr. H. Wilson: The right hon. and learned Gentleman used the words, "not an undue interval". Will he be a little more specific? I do not ask him to tie himself down to a time, such as four weeks or four days, or anything like that, but will he tell us whether it is intended that we shall have the White Paper next week?

Mr. Lloyd: I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman will have the White Paper next week, but I hope that it will be published before the Second Reading of the Bill. In other words, I think that the answer is, a few days.

Mr. W. Hamilton: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman appreciate that the Committee stage of the Hire-Purchase Bill starts next week? Can he say what consultations he has had with a view to sending Schedule 2 of that Bill, which applies exclusively to Scotland, to the Scottish Standing Committee, as this was the practice to which the right hon. and learned Gentleman agreed with the Police Bill? Does he not recognise that this Bill affects the whole of the Scottish hire-purchase law and that there is only one hon. Member


from this side and one from the other from Scotland who are on the Committee? Is not this outrageous treatment of Scottish interests?

Mr. Lloyd: I would have been willing to discuss the matter. We had discussions about the Police Bill as a result of which we came to satisfactory arrangements. However, in view of something said in the House, I have had a look at the Hire-Purchase Bill and, although I am willing to discuss it with hon. Members, on the face of it it seems very difficult to divide the Bill in the way suggested.
The whole point is to get the law in England and Scotland on these matters the same and, therefore, it seems doubtful whether it would be wise to discuss what is hoped to be the common law of the two countries in two different Committees. However, I am prepared to discuss the matter.

Mr. Ross: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman bear in mind that the opportunity now presents itself as never before? Is he not aware that the Secretary of State for Scotland—and there may be something in this in relation to the abolition of resale price maintenance—last week quietly dropped a Bill which had had its Second Reading, the Countryside and Tourist Amenities (Scotland) Bill? That means that we have the opportunity to deal with another Bill in the Scottish Committee? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman therefore seriously consider the suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. W. Hamilton)?

Mr. Lloyd: Certainly I will.

Mr. Woodburn: As the Government have declined to divide the Hire-Purchase Bill, is it now proposed to add more Scottish Members to the Standing Committee so that the Scots can play their part?

Mr. Lloyd: Certainly. If, as a result of conversations, I am able to persuade hon. Members that it is better to proceed as we intend, we will certainly have to add other Members to the Committee.

Mr. C. Johnson: Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman be good enough to consider the circumstances in which

the Countryside and Tourist Amenities (Scotland):Bill has been withdrawn, with a view to making a statement to the House next week? Is he aware that although in the Votes and Proceedings for last Tuesday there appears the item that the Scottish Standing Committee was discharged and the Bill withdrawn, there was no item of business on the Orders of the Day and no reference in HANSARD other than the information conveyed to a back bencher in a Written Answer?
As many people are interested in the Bill, ought not the Government to make a formal statement about the matter? Is it not very undesirable that legislation should be brought to an end without any permanent record being made in HANSARD other than a Written Answer?

Mr. Lloyd: I thought that the position had been made clear in HANSARD in answer to a Question. I shall certainly consider what the hon. Gentleman said.

Mr. Boyden: In view of all the re-organisation that is going on in the building industry, both private and Government, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman reconsider his decision of last week and bring forward the debate on the Ministry of Public Building and Works and the building industry? Is not that as important as any question of resale price maintenance?

Mr. Lloyd: That may be, but there is heavy pressure on Government time, and I can hold out no hope of an early debate on that matter.

Mr. Manuel: In connection with the proposed rail closures in Scotland, may I ask the Leader of the House whether he is aware that the Prime Minister, in giving information to the House last week and the week before, indicated that the decision would be left to the Minister of Transport, yet he gave different information to a Scottish deputation which waited on him yesterday to get the matter cleared up?
Will the Leader of the House ask his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to make a statement in the House next week so that we may know what is the correct position? Surely, if a statement


is made to a Scottish deputation, a similar statement should be made to the House of Commons?

Mr. Lloyd: I thought that the proposition which the hon. Gentleman was very ingenious in getting into a discussion of the business for next week was disputed.

Mr. Manuel: This is a new one.

Mr. Lloyd: I am sure that my right hon. Friend will note what the hon. Gentleman said.

Mr. Woodburn: With reference to the intimation by the Leader of the House about the introduction next week of the Bill dealing with resale price maintenance, may I ask whether the Bill is being introduced to carry out the Minister's original statement, or is it, as is rumoured, a completely different Bill?

Mr. Lloyd: The right hon. Gentleman must wait, read, and study the Bill, and draw his own conclusions.

Mr. Wigg: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he recollects that during the debate on aviation, earlier this week, the Minister of Aviation gave the House an assurance that the contents of the Lang Committee's report would be conveyed to the House? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman be good enough to see that that is done at the earliest possible moment? Will he ensure that the report is published as a White Paper, and that as soon as it is published the House will be given an opportunity to discuss the matter?

Mr. Lloyd: I am not quite certain about the last part of that question, but I shall consider the earlier part of it.

Mr. W. Hamilton: Reverting to the question of the Hire-Purchase Bill, will the Leader of the House recognise that we would regard the suggestion to put more Scottish Members on the Standing Committee considering the Bill as an inadequate alternative to having Schedule 2 of the Bill dealt with by the Scottish Standing Committee?

Mr. Lloyd: I shall take note of the hon. Gentleman's remarks.

Mr. H. Wilson: Will the Leader of the House use his influence, which I am sure is considerable, to ensure that next week we get an authoritative statement from the Government Front Bench about the country's balance of payments position? May I ask the Leader of the House whether, in view of the statement thrown out, perhaps somewhat lightly, by the Prime Minister on television on Monday night, and because of the totally different figures produced, and statements made, by a succession of different Ministers, he realises that there is great confusion in the country?
Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman, with his great experience of the problem of perceiving an incipient balance of payments crisis, persuade one of his right hon. Friends to make a statement—or perhaps make one himself—so that the House and the country can be put in picture?

Orders of the Day — EMERGENCY POWERS BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

3.54 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Henry Brooke): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
This is the fourth Home Office Bill which I have introduced this Session. Each of the other three has been given a Second Reading without a Division, so I hope that I may be equally succesful today. It is quite a short Bill, and I can introduce it shortly.
It was during the prolonged bad weather of last winter that I first started to think about the limitations on our powers to take emergency action in a national emergency. Clause 1 amends the Emergency Powers Act, 1920. When that Act was passed the country was in the throes of readjusting itself to peace-time after the First World War. As many of us remember, it was a time of industrial unrest. That was the problem in view, and so the Act was directed at emergencies resulting from labour troubles. It was confined to them.
Its purpose was, and is, to enable the Government of the day to take measures to maintain supplies which are essential to the life of the community. But there is no obvious reason why the Government should be able to take these measures only when supply difficulties are threatened as a result of labour troubles. The threat may come from other causes; from what the insurance policies refer to as an act of God, or indeed from developments in other countries beyond our control.
If since 1920, all Governments have been granted special powers to secure essential supplies for the public in times of industrial emergency, it seems common sense to make similar provision for dealing with any type of emergency in the future which similarly threatens the essentials of life. That is the object of the Bill.
That is Clause 1, and in Clause 2 we are taking the opportunity of making permanent the defence regulation which authorises the use of Service men on

agricultural work and other urgent work of national importance.
If I may explain Clause 1, the main Clause, fin t, it amends section 1(1) of the Emergency Powers Act, 1920. That subsection empowers Her Majesty to make a proclamation of emergency if at any time it appears that action has been taken, or is immediately threatened, by any persons or body of persons of such a nature and on so extensive a scale as to be calculated, by interfering with the supply and distribution of food, water, fuel, or light, or with the means of locomotion, to deprive the community, or a substantial portion of it, of the essentials of life.
That has been the law since 1920. It must be a serious emergency, and a manmade one. There must have been, or be about to be, interference with the supply and distribution of food, water, fuel or light or with the means of locomotion, and that interference must be on so extensive a scale that it will be likely to deprive at least a substantial proportion of the community of the essentials of life. Fortunately emergencies on that scale have occurred very seldom. Proclamations of emergency have been made on only six occasions since 1920: the last three were in 1948 and in 1949 in connection with dock strikes, and in 1955 during the railway strike.
The validity of the proclamation continues for only one month. If the emergency lasts longer, a further proclamation must be male. Once a proclamation has been made, the occasion for it must be comunicated forthwith to Parliament. If Parliament is adjourned or prorogued at the time, it must be reassembled within five days.
During the time a proclamation of emergency is in force, emergency regulations may be made by Order in Council for securing the essentials of life to the public. These regulations can make provision for the preservation of the peace, for securing and regulating the supply of food, water, fuel, light and other necessities, for maintaining the means of transit or locomotion, and for any other purposes essential to the public safety and the life of the community.
These are very wide powers. As one can see from the regulations that were made in 1949 and 1955, they enable relaxations to be made in statutory


requirements as to the supply of electricity or gas or to the use of vehicles. They enable controls to be imposed on the inessential use of essential supplies. They give requisitioning powers, and they make various provisions for the preservation of law and order. But no regulation can be made imposing any form of compulsory military service or industrial conscription, and no regulation can be made which would render it an offence to take part in a strike or peacefully to persuade others to strike.
As soon as emergency regulations have been made, they must be laid before Parliament. Then, unless within seven days they are approved by affirmative Resolution in both Houses, they automatically expire. They may be revoked at any time, and they automatically expire when a proclamation of emergency is no longer in force. Unless a further proclamation is made, that will be after one month. So far as I am aware, on the few occasions when emergency regulations have been made, no complaint has ever subsequently arisen about the exercise of the powers.
All this is authorised, and has been authorised for the past 44 years, as a safeguard against serious emergencies when widespread disruption of essential supplies seems liable to follow from industrial action. The Bill proposes no amendment of the law whatever as regards that kind of emergency. What it does propose to do is to make the powers which can already be exercised in that kind of emergency available to deal with all other kinds of emergencies.
This is done by the simple amendment made in Clause 1. It in no way reduces the gravity of the situation which must exist, or be immediately threatened, before a proclamation of emergency can be made. What it does do is to remove the restriction that the emergency must have resulted from the action, or threat of it, of any persons or body of persons. In other words, it makes the powers of the 1920 Act available in all serious emergencies which will affect the essentials of life, whatever the cause.
In the future, as in the past, the powers which the amendment will make available will very seldom be exercised. Emergencies that justify the use of them hardly ever occur. It would be very good if they never were needed. How-

ever, I submit to the House that it is better to be armed in advance than to be defenceless when the contingency happens.
The sort of contingency we have in mind is an unforeseen calamity of a wholly exceptional kind. Flooding on an even more serious scale than the grave East Coast floods of 1953 is a conceivable possibility. We did not know that those East Coast floods could be so bad, till they came. Another possibility is a quite abnormally long freeze-up, worse even than we experienced last winter.
I would like the House to know that after last winter the Government undertook a comprehensive review of all the arrangements everywhere for coping with bad weather. As a result of that review, many steps have been taken—steps to improve equipment, to acquire additional emergency equipment, to coordinate plans at all levels, and to encourage preparations for bad winter conditions. But there is a limit to the money which it is sensible to authorise on emergency provisions which may never be used, and the best plans may be defeated in an emergency on a scale which out-soars anything ever previously contemplated.
The problem is to strike the right balance. With the action already taken and planned, we think that we have gone as far as we practically can by administrative means and forethought to take precautions against severe and prolonged snow and frost. But one must recognise that circumstances may arise so utterly exceptional that all precautions might be inadequate. That is why we think that emergency powers ought to be available as a last resort, not confined to industrial disputes only.
There is another contingency which the amendment of the law in Clause 1 will cover. The more highly organised life becomes, the more the country depends on a great variety of supplies which come to us from abroad, and so, if there is any interruption of those supplies, we are the more vulnerable. Oil is perhaps the most obvious case. At present, powers exist under Regulation 55 (1,d) of the Defence (General) Regulations, 1939, which would enable the necessary action to be taken—control of supplies, rationing, and so forth.


That regulation is at present continued in force by the Emergency Laws (Repeal) Act, 1959, but only until the end of the current year. Emergency Regulations under the 1920 Act, as amended by the Bill, will make possible a similar control. So if the Bill is passed there will be no need to renew Regulation 55 (1,d), and it will die at the end of this year.
As a, matter of fact, the powers available under the Bill will be subject to rather greater limitations than those that are available now under the defence regulations. The test of an emergency is more stringent in the 1920 Act than in the regulation. The powers under the regulation can be exercised without a proclamation of emergency having been made, whereas the 1920 Act powers cannot. These are limitations which the Government readily accept, and indeed welcome. The powers under the defence regulations were intended to deal with war-time conditions. In peace time, the Government consider that greater safeguards should be imposed on emergency powers, and that will be the effect of replacing the defence regulation by the power under the Bill.
The Bill, in Clause 2, also gives permanent effect to another defence regulation which also is at present continued in force by the 1959 Act only until the end of 1964. This is Defence (Armed Forces) Regulation No. 6, the only one of this code of regulations still surviving. It authorises the temporary employment of Service men on agricultural work or other urgent work of national importance.
The scope of this regulation is very much more limited than the other powers about which I have been talking. The nub of the matter here is what constitutes a "lawful order". In the past, as the House well knows, members of the Armed Forces have performed invaluable services with work in connection with the harvest, assistance during flood disasters, heath fires, conditions of severe snow and ice, and help in maintaining essential supplies.
None of these tasks can be properly described as military duties. So there is some doubt whether, in the absence of the regulation, orders to assist in work of this kind could properly be

regarded as lawful orders. If they were not, they would be open to challenge. The possibility of a challenge may be extremely remote, but it cannot be ignored and treated as though it was non-existent. The existence of the regulation has been a safeguard, and a necessary safeguard. This has been recognised ever since the last war, and the Regulation has been continued in force on a temporary basis without question. The Bill now provides a suitable vehicle for giving it permanent form, and that is the purpose of Clause 2.
I think that the Bill as a whole is a wise exercise in foresight. It is an insurance policy against contingencies—remote contingencies, perhaps, but real ones nevertheless. It is an insurance policy which costs nothing, except a period of Parliamentary time, and I hope that the House will regard the whole Bill as an improvement in the law which we ought to make.

4.10 p.m.

Sir Frank Soskice: As the Home Secretary said, the Emergency Powers Act, 1920, has been on the Statute Book for about 44 years. We are used to it and we know its provisions. It is the type of Act, I suppose, one cannot do without, although its provisions are necessarily stringent and one always hopes that one will never have to need recourse to them. Apparently it has been rarely necessary for those powers to be used.
Now, 44 years later, the Home Secretary, on this quiet afternoon, comes to the House and proposes this miniscule Measure containing two small Clauses which are designed to amend the provisions of the 1920 Act—that, after 12 years of the present Government, without any indication that it was pending, without anything happening which would seem to indicate the necessity for this change, unheralded, apparently unwanted—suddenly it is sprung upon us and this very bare afternoon is given over to its discussion.
After we have completed our deliberations on this Measure there follows the Committee stage of the War Damage Bill. There is no Amendment down to that, so the whole of the afternoon, apart from Prayers, is being devoted to the


consideration of this small Bill, which is unlikely to arouse a great deal of discussion. When I first saw it I was reminded of the line in Hamlet:
Thou com'st in such questionable shape, That I will speak with thee…
I am not referring to the Home Secretary, but to the rather extraordinary Bill which he has produced. What is behind it and why are we now suddenly asked to consider and pass it? Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us why he has introduced it? Is the real truth that he and his colleagues have been scouring their pigeon-holes and in-trays to discover something to occupy the House while the Prime Minister makes up his mind about the date of the General Election? If that is what the right hon. Gentleman is doing, I hope that he will tell us because, apart from that, I cannot see any necessity for the Bill.
We are told by the Home Secretary, and we at once accept his word for it, that the necessity for the Bill came to him as a sudden inspiration when he was feeling some discomfort during last year's cold weather. Is that really what happened? Was he sitting in a draughty room when he suddenly felt that it was high time that Parliament amended the Emergency Powers Act, 1920? One cannot help wondering whether something more is behind it and whether the explanation I have tendered is the real one.
I would test the position by asking the right hon. Gentleman to think of any situation relating to the happening of a natural cause, like the cold weather of last year, in the 44 years that have elapsed since the 1920 Act was passed when it would have been desirable or necessary to make regulations under this Bill had it been law. Consider the cold weather last year, which occasioned a great deal of discomfort and inconvenience. Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that there would have been regulations made to deal with that situation had the Bill been law? If so, what sort of regulations would have been made? What situation does the Home Secretary envisage is likely to arise in a practical sense in the next 10 years which might make necessary regulations under this Amendment of the 1920 Act?
As the right hon. Gentleman explained, the Bill deletes from the 1920 Act the following words:
…any action has been taken or is immediately threatened by any persons or body of persons of such a nature and on such extensive a scale…
and it substitutes the words:
…there have occurred, or are about to occur, events of such a nature.
That is a momentous change. "Action" is deleted and "events" substituted.
As a matter of construction, if a judge had to construe the words to be substituted and was asked whether "events" includes a natural event as distinct from one attributable to a human action he might say "yes", because "event" is wider than "action". I suppose that that is what the Home Secretary wants, although I cannot see the case for the Bill.
Had the Home Secretary given one situation or an example of one imagined situation in which it would have been necessary to have the Bill to make regulations I would have felt more convinced by his case. Instead of that he simply mentioned the cold weather and floods—I forget what else—and I hope that he will try to find a situation which is a possible situation. I do not mind if it is only barely imaginable, but I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will think of a situation relating to the happening of some natural event which would make it desirable to make regulations under the Bill if it became law.
I suppose that an earthquake destroying the whole of London and the Midlands would be such a situation. There would be such destruction and confusion caused that regulations would probably be necessary. But because there is snow, a lot of rain, heavy winds and because we have a lot of mist and fog in this country, what else is there likely to occasion regulations of the sort the right hon. Gentleman envisages?
I am not saying that I have any violent objection in principle to the Bill We should, as the right hon. Gentleman said, be ready for emergencies—but ready on a reasonable basis. We should not clutter up the Statute Book with wording appropriate to wholly hypothetical contingencies which are unlikely to be translated into reality according to all the experience we have had. I


would like the right hon. Gentleman to cast his mind back over the 44 years the 1920 Act has been in force and think of one example when it would have been desirable to make these regulations. If Ministers cannot do that, I am constrained to ask the House to draw the conclusion that this is simply something to fill out time.
The Government do not have a case for the Bill. They are merely trying to keep the House occupied until the Prime Minister makes up his mind what is to happen and when there is to be a General Election. That, I respectfully say to the right hon. Gentleman, is not the proper way to occupy the time and attention of the House of Commons.
That deals with Clause 1. Clause 2 simply has the effect of making the Defence (Armed Forces) Regulations, 1939, in the altered form in which they appear in Part C of Schedule 2 to the Emergency Laws (Repeal) Act, 1959, permanent. Why, suddenly, do the Government wish to do this now? It may be a useful exercise, but suddenly to hit on the bright idea of going to those regulations, which do not expire until December of this year—nearly a year hence—and putting them into the Bill and making them permanent leads one to wonder why this is being done.
We have had the expiring laws continuance legislation for a considerable time. In practice, it comes before us in December of each year and I am bound to wonder why the Government have not used the Expiring Laws Continuance Act for this little Bill. The regulations have been before Parliament on several occasions since the last war and we have not thought it right to bring them to an end and, as I say, they would have expired next December. There may be a case for making them permanent but, if there is, why do so now? What is the unexplained inspiration behind this exercise?
I cannot offer any objection in principle to making them permanent. They will possibly have their use in some unhappy situation which I hope will never eventuate. I ask the same question about Clause 2 as I did about Clause 1: what is behind it and what suddenly moved the Home Secretary to this exercise? Why are we being treated to this this afternoon? I hope that a stronger

case will be put forward if we are to be invited to give the Bill a Second Reading.
It is said that there may be some point in having these powers, in the event of a most unlikely hypothetical situation arising. But such a situation must be extremely unlikely, and in those circumstances I should like to know why the Minister now suddenly takes it into his head to introduce these changes, without any real explanation, except that he suddenly thought of doing so during the cold weather last year.
I hope that a better case will be put forward by the Joint Under-Secretary when he winds up the debate.

4.20 p.m.

Sir Stephen McAdden: The right hon. and learned Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) is such a gentle man that nobody could object to the way in which he sought to chide my right hon. Friend for introducing this Measure. But I thought that my right hon. Friend advanced some excellent reasons why it should be introduced at this stage. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman consulted some of his colleagues on the back benches he might find that their views about possible catastrophes descending upon this country in the future differed from his own. He will know that many of his hon. Friends spend their time marching about the country, leading demonstrations and warning us of the great potential dangers which exist from nuclear power stations.
It may be that they feel seriously worried, and that provision ought to be made for the totally new kind of emergency which might arise in the future.

Sir F. Soskice: I appreciate the point that the hon. Member is making, but the kind of situation that he is describing is exactly one which could have been covered by the 1920 Act.

Mr. Brooke: indicated dissent.

Sir F. Soskice: I am asking what is the point of the Bill.

Sir S. McAdden: I am sure that my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary will deal with that point. Not being trained in the law, I am not at all certain


that the argument advanced by the right hon. and learned Gentleman is correct, judging by the negative motions of the head that my right hon. Friend made while the right hon. and learned Gentleman was advancing this point. I can look back upon disasters which were quite unexpected. I remember with vivid clarity the 1953 floods along the East Coast, which grievously affected my constituency, among others. Nobody imagined that there was any danger of flooding upon that scale at the time, and I am sure that if my right hon. Friend had introduced this legislation prior to those floods people would have said, "What a ridiculous thing to talk about. Such a thing could not happen." But it did.
Furthermore, in the complex industrial life in which we live today products are being manufactured which have never been manufactured here before, and new scientific techniques and devices are being adopted. It is, therefore, right to visualise the possibility of a quite unforeseen disaster occurring. For this reason, my right hon. Friend's simple little Bill—with which nobody quarrels—should be given a Second Reading.
I do not wish to prolong the debate, but I must point out that Clause 2 is of great importance. As my right hon. Friend has said, it involves the question whether orders given to soldiers are lawful orders in present circumstances. It seems to be a sensible and reasonable provision to ensure the continued loyalty of our Armed Forces. I am sure that they are not likely to challenge orders given by their superior officers. They are, normally, well-behaved troops. But there is always a chance that unless it is made clear that orders which are given are lawfully given, dissension will be caused among the Armed Forces of the Crown.
For all these reasons I hope that the Bill will have an easy passage. It is not right to expect that there will be no opposition. Some hon. Members opposite may find something that they violently dislike about the Bill, but it seems to me to be designed for emergencies of a kind which have taken place in the past and which may take place, in a totally different sphere, in the future. My right hon. Friend should

not be reprimanded for seeking to arm himself with these powers, which may be necessary in the totally unforeseen circumstances of the future.

4.25 p.m.

Mr. Sidney Silverman: I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) for having made the observations that he did. At one time I was afraid that the Bill would be allowed to go through "on the nod", without any examination. That would have been a great pity.
The speech of the hon. Member for Southend, East (Sir S. McAdden) only adds to the difficulty. His argument is that at any time there is a danger that something may happen for which we are not prepared, and that in anticipation of such an event the Government ought to be armed with the dictatorial and tyrannical powers of the 1920 Act. If that is a sound case now, it was a sound case last year; it was a sound case five years ago, and it has been a sound case every year for the past 44 years.
But until the Minister did so at this late hour in the lifetime of this Parliament, no one felt the need of such a Measure. If he feels the need for such a thing now, he must have in his mind either a sinister reason, which he does not wish to disclose, or some trivial motive, such as my right hon. and learned Friend has attributed to him. We are entitled to know which it is.
What the right hon. Gentleman said about the 1920 Act is quite correct, but it is as well to remember what sort of Parliament the 1920 Parliament was; what sort of state the country was in then; what had occurred, and how the Government of the day had dealt with it. We had an overwhelmingly Conservative Government. I believe that they called themselves something else, but when Conservative Governments are successful they always call themselves something else, or they would never be elected.
The 1920 Government was elected on a war-time coupon—the then Mr. Lloyd George's coupon election—in a wave of triumph, as a vote of thanks from the country. It was a Parliament consisting of what the late Professor J. M. Keynes described as a lot of hard-faced men who looked as if they had done very


well out of the war. But it was not only that they set themselves to do very well out of the peace, too. All kinds of controls were removed. Millions of men were simultaneously let loose on the labour market, in a country which had not even begun to adapt itself to the change-over from war-time to peacetime conditions indeed, for years after that it would have been a very optimistic Member of the House of Commons who could have described the period as a peace-time period.
In those circumstances, as the Home Secretary said, there was a serious danger of industrial disruption and, perhaps, subversion. To guard themselves against the anger of the people, arising out of the chaos that the post-war Government had produced, that Government felt bound to arm themselves with these extreme powers, and they found no difficulty in getting through their Measure in a Parliament constituted as it then was.
Nevertheless, outside the House the Measure was fiercely resisted. It did not go through in a calm and peaceful atmosphere, such as the right hon. Gentleman anticipated when he moved his Motion this afternoon. There were meetings throughout the country. There were gatherings that amounted almost to riotous assemblies, because people did not like to see any Government—and least of all that Government—arming themselves with such supreme powers as that Act provided, in suitable circumstances.
Therefore, even the Government of that day limited themselves to this one class of case and during the early half-century since no one has thought it necessary to expand or extend them or apply them in different situations, until the right hon. Gentleman thought of it, in an odd moment when he felt cold at home at the beginning of a winter which turned out not to be so very severe after all.
These are very strong powers. One does not deny that emergencies can happen. But in spite of all the strictures and criticisms about the slow working of Parliamentary democracy this House has never found itself inhibited by any of its rules from equipping itself, and the Government of the day, very quickly with any powers which were thought necessary. I do not think that the

hon. Member for Southend, East was a Member of the House, as I was, in the early days of the Second World War.
Then we passed an Act of Parliament which gave the Government of the day—we did it readily, there was no opposition at all—supreme and complete power over every man, woman and child, every service and commodity and industry and shop—everything we had. How long did it take us to do that? Less than half a Parliamentary day. The Bill was presented, it received a Second Reading, Committee stage, Report stage, Third Reading and it was moved to the House of Lords for a First Reading, Second Reading, Report stage, a Third Reading in another place and then the Royal Assent—all within a space of four or five hours.
We can act quickly when we have to. We can act quickly and effectively when we think it necessary. It is not necessary to give the Government all sorts of tyrannical powers in anticipation of academic possibilities not even described to the House. What has become of our parliamentary democracy? Where are we getting to?
This Bill was introduced by a Minister who shudders at the idea of giving the Government of the day power to control the manufacture of steel, which is basic to all our industries, as the steel companies are very fond of telling us. It is so basic that the companies are afraid power may be taken out of their hands and the industry may be nationalised. They are so fearful of nationalisation that when they want to find a cheap and effective way to advertise the dangers of nationalisation to the people of this country, they go to the nationalised Post Office and say, "For heaven's sake do it for us, because if you do not do it for us, we shall not be able to do it at all."
They will not have Government control, they will not have communal ownership or economic planning which enforces on anyone any serious limitation to his power to do what he likes with his own for real purposes. Economically, we are in a dangerous situation. I do not know when the General Election is to be. It may be that that is the emergency which the right hon. Gentleman has in mind. I do


not know. In the meantime, the trend of economics is against us and against the Government. We are moving into a very serious situation. Everybody knows it. If that is what the Government have in mind, why do not they say so? Do they foresee such a collapse of the economic situation that they will need to arm themselves with powers of this kind? It is possible that there may be such a collapse. I hope not, but it is not beyond the bounds of possibility.
I do not know whether it is in the mind of the right hon. Gentleman that this might happen. If it is, he ought to say so and we should then know what he is thinking about, instead of being left to guess as best we can. However serious the economic situation may now be, I hope and believe that it will not be anything like so serious as it was in 1930, or 1931, when we had a complete financial and economic collapse.

Sir S. McAdden: According to a Labour Government.

Mr. Silverman: The hon. Member says, "According to a Labour Government". There was a Labour Government at the time. But the Tory Government who succeeded them were careful to explain that what had happened was a world-wide economic crisis. I am not concerned about whose responsibility it was. I am concerned that when we had a serious catastrophic situation of that kind, even the Government of that day did not think it necessary to have powers such as are to be given to this Government, for unknown and unforeseeable reasons, by the provisions of this Bill.

Sir S. McAdden: Surely the hon. Gentleman's recollection is wrong about the period from 1929 to 1931. There was a Socialist Government. They did not seek to use powers or to take over. They split themselves up into three sections as he will recall. Some joined the Fascists, some National Labour and half remained in the political wilderness until 1945.

Mr. Silverman: The hon. Gentleman may have it that way if he wishes. We all tend to rewrite history to suit our pet theories. It is a free country and anybody can think what he likes about anything.
My point is that the Labour Government collapsed. There was a General Election. The Labour Party in this House was reduced to 51 Members. We had a National Government, ostensibly formed merely to meet the immediate emergency. They said that they would go out of office immediately afterwards but they did not. Never mind, that is what the Government was formed for, a National, all-party, Government. Many members of the Labour Party joined it in order to meet, in an emergency manner, a situation of emergency.
The point I am making is that they did not seek powers such as the right hon. Gentleman is seeking today. I invite him to say whether he seeks them today because he anticipates—after 12 years of Tory Government—a worse economic collapse than happened in 1930, or 1931, so that the next Government will need vaster authoritarian powers than the Government of 1931 thought that it was necessary for them to have. We are entitled to more explanation. We are entitled to be told what it is that the Government are afraid of, in this election year, that no one has been afraid of since 1920. It must be something.
I listened with respect to the ingenious attempts of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Newport to extract from what the Home Secretary had not said what was probably in his mind. The best that my right hon. and learned Friend could do—I know of no Member who could have done more in the matter—was to assume that the Home Secretary was thinking of filling out time until the Prime Minister makes up his mind on precisely what date he wishes to cease to be Prime Minister.
If that is what is in the mind of the Home Secretary, we could deal with the situation much more simply. The Prime Minister has only to make up his mind now—he will have to do it sooner or later. Let him tell us what date Parliament will dissolve. If it is an early date, there will be no need to fill out time and we shall all be delighted to hear it and deal with the situation as it then appears.
What is the Prime Minister waiting for? Having become a "life commoner" he does not even have to fear for his future. He has a safe seat. He has given up his seat in another place. He can remain a Member of the House of


Commons for the rest of his life and, at the end of it, his peerage will be entirely safe for his successors. Is it that he fears the job of being Leader of the Opposition will entail even less support from hon. Members behind him than the job of being Prime Minister?
All this is purely speculative, but we are left to speculate precisely because the Home Secretary has given us no substantive reason for asking for the Bill at all. We are, therefore, left to wonder whether he has a substantial reason that is a sinister one, or whether it is, as my right hon. and learned Friend said, merely a matter of letting the children play until the Prime Minister decides to throw in his hand. If there were anything sinister, if there were any substantial reason which was compulsive on the right hon. Gentleman for bringing in a Bill of this kind, we are left wondering what it is.
Does he fear a sudden breakdown on the international scene? I hope not. If he feared that he could afford no good reason for today's Bill. As I have explained, in a really serious situation of that kind, in September, 1939, the House of Commons found no difficulty whatever in dealing with the emergency and the needs of that grave emergency within a very short time, and doing it very effectively indeed. Is there something else? It is all very well to talk lightly and, it may be, frivolously, in the House of Commons, but we have to do something with a Bill when the Government present it. We have to decide whether to pass it or not and for what reasons we do what we do, but we must not think that people outside the House will not be seriously disturbed by what we are doing today.
They will be no more satisfied with the explanation the right hon. Gentleman has offered the House of Commons than the House of Commons is satisfied with that explanation. Is this a moment to instil into the public mind greater fears, greater anxieties, greater tensions whether about domestic affairs or international trade or international politics, war and peace or whatever it may be? I say to the right hon. Gentleman, please do not treat us as children and please do not treat the electorate as children. They are not children; they are adult citizens, experienced citizens not easily

swayed by any kind of soothing phrase. If they sec the right hon. Gentleman asking for powers of this kind at this moment, and if they are not satisfied—as they cannot possibly be satisfied—with the reasons the right hon. Gentleman offers, are they not likely to ask themselves what is the real reason?
If the right hon. Gentleman has no ground for instilling these fears, anxieties and suspicions into people's minds when, heaven knows, they have enough to be fearful of without that, ought he not either to be absolutely frank and to tell the people the grave reason that makes it necessary for him to ask Parliament for these powers, or, if there is no such grave reason, then to abandon Britain? I say the House of Commons ought not to pass this Bill until it is given a very much better reason for it than the right hon. Gentleman has offered so far.

4.44 p.m.

Sir Harry Legge-Bourke: When the right hon. and learned Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) opened for the Opposition and quoted from Hamlet, I could not help being reminded simultaneously of a quotation from Sir Humphrey Gilbert, when, addressing Queen Elizabeth I, he said:
I hold it as lawful in Christian policie to prevent a mischief betimes as to avenge it too late.
I should have thought that there was a great deal to be said for the Bill in that context.
The hon, Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) has at will a very conveniently intermittent memory. His scamper across the history which has elapsed between 1920 and now left out one or two things and in that scamper he also distorted one or two matters. I cannot profess to have the vivid recollection of the 1920s that he may have, although I do not think that I shall ever forget as long as I live Armistice Day, 1918, nor some of the days when the newspapers published the casualty lists from the Battle of the Somme, but I was a great deal younger in those days, a great deal younger than the hon. Member.
I should have thought that someone who adopted the policies which his party adopted between the two wars ought to be a little careful about what this House


found it necessary to do in September, 1939, because it is my personal recollection that year after year the Opposition were voting against the Service Estimates and, as late as May, 1939, against conscription. Some of these Measures would not have been necessary had it been made more clear that this country meant to fight.

Mr. S. Silverman: I certainly was not seeking to use this occasion to debate the whole political and international history of this country between 1920 and 1939. I know what the hon. Member's view is about that he knows what my view is about it. Nothing that we can say in support of either view has any relevance to what we are debating today. I did not talk about what happened between 1920 and 1939. I talked only about the situation in which we were in 1920 and about the situation in which we were in 1939. I pointed out that in 1939 we did not need the powers we thought we needed in 1920 and, a fortiori, we do not need them now.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: Again, the hon. Member has a very convenient memory in forgetting that he spent some time discussing what happened in 1931. I am sure, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that you would agree with me that the historical side will probably always be open to debate and interpretation and "never the twain shall meet" so far as to two sides of this House are concerned.
As to the hon. Member's views about the need for the Bill in the foreseeable future, I am not in the mind of the Government on the matter on whether or not there are certain contingencies about which they are particularly anxious, but I say to the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne that there was a big difference between what happened in September, 1939, or any time in 1931 to which he was referring, and what might possibly arise in the next few months. It is quite possible that we shall have a General Election coinciding with a major calamity of some sort. I should have thought it very essential that powers should be available to the Government to deal with that situation.
The hon. Member, I think, overlooked this in his speech. The Government goes on after the dissolution of Parlia-

ment. The Prime Minister remains Prime Minister until the new Parliament is elected. I believe the present Prime Minister will still be Prime Minister after the election anyway, but that is a matter of opinion. Her Majesty's Government has to be carried on during the course of the election. I do not think the hon. Member visualised the possibility of a major disaster of some sort during the weeks while a General Election is being fought and after the dissolution of this Parliament.

Mr. S. Silverman: The Government, in such an event, which I am sure we all hope will not happen, would not be able to use these powers. The Government can use these powers only if it recalls Parliament to consider them within five days of making a proclamation. How can they do that during an election?

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I should think that it very essential to have power to make the proclamation. The Government can make the proclamation whether the House is sitting or not. Perhaps I am on a false legal point here. If so, I hope that my right hon. Friend will clear it up. The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne is a lawyer, and I am not.
It would then be very important to have such powers and, having them, it is conceivable that even before the dissolution of the House it might be necessary to make a proclamation—or even delay the dissolution of the House. With a General Election pending this year, and with the world in the state it is, it seems very important that the Government should be able to forestall those calamities that can be avoided.
One factor is certainly of importance. This year, two of the major countries of the West—the United States and the United Kingdom—will be holding elections virtually simultaneously. Election fever is gradually building up in both countries. I do not think that the Communist parties in the various other countries have shown themselves so saintly, so virtuous and so considerate of the best interests of other people that they will not seek to exploit that situation if they are given the chance. Therefore, if it is necessary for us to have emergency powers to deal with such a contingency, let us have those powers.
The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne and I have disagreed on many


matters, but on one thing I do agree with him, and that is that Members of the House are entitled to ask questions of the Government of the day in order to satisfy their own curiousity, if for no other reason. I do not resent his asking Questions—if I may say so, probably the one thing about his political activities that. I admire is the fact that he is a good parliamentarian. I only claim a similar desire in that respect.
It is for hon. Members to interpret for themselves what they think is the purpose of the Bill. I have tried to give the House what I believe are some of the purposes for which it might be used. Whether those are the same purposes as the Government had in mind, I do not know, but what I find more important is what the Government might be able to do in certain circumstances and what powers they should have to prevent these things ever arising. I see the Bill as giving power to the Government to prevent some things arising, and to deal with disasters if they do arise.
We are faced at present with trouble in Cyprus, and we have to remember that our troops on home stations are very few in number. Can my right hon. Friend say whether this Bill is in any way essential should it ever become necessary for us to call out troops from the Reserve or from the Territorial Army in order to do jobs in a national disaster that would normally have been done by the garrison normally stationed at home? Or is the law as it stands adequate to cope with that situation in any case? I would hope that it was, but if this Bill is necessary to enable that sort of thing to be done, it is only right that it should be passed with the utmost expedition.
I turn, now, to the mechanics of the Bill. Clause 2 writes into permanent legislation certain of the 1939 Defence Regulations. I can remember that when the Conservative Party was again returned to power, considerable pressure was brought to bear on the Government of the day to abolish those regulations that could no longer be said to be necessary and to put the others into permanent legislation. I therefore welcome the fact that those defence regulations that are to continue are to be put into permanent legislation.
When the regulations were first laid they were not capable of amendment. Those that were continued went straight into Part C of Schedule 2 to the Emergency Laws (Repeal) Act, 1959, but, in the light of the changes that have taken place since the end of the Second World War, I should like those regulations to be put in the ordinary form of a Schedule to the Bill, and capable of amendment in Committee. The House is under some obligation to go through whatever is in a Schedule to any Bill, but, as printed, this Bill has no Schedule; we are referred back to Schedule 2 of the 1959 Act.
I think that the mere fact that Clause 2 makes permanent the regulations in Part C of Schedule 2 of the 1959 Act should entitle the House to make Amendments to that Schedule. Obviously, the Chair would come into the question of procedure, but I cannot help feeling that with all that has altered in our economy since 1945, with the enormous growth of atomic energy alone, and with the very much more technical type of life we now lead industrially, we might, in going through the details of those Schedules, find certain things that it would now be positively dangerous to continue. There should therefore be scope for amending the Schedules of the 1959 Act.
I hope that what I say is not thought to be in any way unconstructive. I only believe that if we are to amend the emergency powers in this way it is right to get them as useful as possible for as long as possible, and it may be that some of the war-time regulations want bringing more up to date than they were brought up to date in the Schedule to the 1959 Act.
I do not believe that my right hon. Friend would have brought the Bill forward unless it were necessary—[Interruption.] Hon. Members opposite cannot be expected to trust anybody but themselves—and, even there, there is a good deal of doubt from time to time. But I have very great faith indeed in my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, and I do not think that he would have brought forward the Bill unless it were necessary. I welcome it, and hope that it will enable the Government to forestall disasters, or to deal with unavoidable disasters more effectively.

4.57 p.m.

Mr. Cyril Bence: I have been shocked by some of the things I have heard this afternoon. The hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) spoke of 1939, and of the dissolution of the Government—but Governments are not dissolved. Parliament is dissolved, this House is dissolved—not the Government; the Government continue—

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: That is what I said.

Mr. Bence: Parliament is dissolved and cannot function in the usual way during an election, but the Government still have tremendous powers in an emergency without our putting on the Statute Books such a Measure as this.
I remember 1939 very well, and I remember the National Defence Contribution. I believe that that raised about £1,800 million, but up to 1939 we got very little for it. Instead of the Chancellor of the Exchequer bringing that forward it might have been far better to have got emergency powers to take control of the armament industry and set it to work. Where that £1,800 million went is anybody's guess. I was in the engineering industry at the time, and what happened then is a pretty sore point with me.
This Bill seems to seek an extension of the powers of the Executive that is against all the tradition of British Parliamentary development and evolution. The hon. Member for Ely has talked about our history, but Parliament came into being simply because the people did not trust the Executive. They did not concede infallibility either to Monarch or to Ministers. The people distrusted them, and that is why we are here today.
The idea of having a Parliament is that the Executive must be watched. We believe that the State is not omnipotent and all-knowing. If everybody trusted the Government there would be no need of a Parliament. Absolute power corrupts, but the hon. and gallant Member does not like this principle. He wants to get rid of it. He trusts those with omnipotent power. The more power they have the more he trusts them. When the hon. and gallant Member is sitting on the Opposition side of

the House, will he give absolute power to and have absolute faith in whoever may be Home Secretary? I doubt it. If he does, he will be refuting the history of the country.

Mr. S. Silverman: My hon. Friend does the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely an injustice, from which I must protect him. I have no doubt that if the hon. and gallant Member were sitting on this side of the House and this Bill had been introduced by a Socialist Home Secretary he would have been opposing it tooth and nail.

Mr. Bence: I thank my hon. Friend, and I am sure that the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely is gratified that he should have come to his defence. I also believe that of the hon. and gallant Member. We know and respect him, but we are here to protect the citizen from the excessive power of a bureaucracy. We should be careful to refuse the Executive more power than is strictly necessary.
As the product of a Welsh Radical Liberal family I was surprised that when we are debating a Bill to give more power to the Executive there is not a single Liberal Member present. I wonder what Scottish Liberals would think. The Scots are very particular about giving too much power to the Executive.
The Bill, for example, gives power to the Executive if there is a threat of action concerned with transport and the distribution of food. We in Scotland have had our transport threatened by Dr. Beeching. North of Inverness we shall have no railways at all. Will these emergency powers apply? Will the Armed Forces take over the railways because Dr. Beeching will not work them? The Bill deals with the distribution of food, fuel and water and with means of locomotion. If the British Transport Commission insists on closing the railway lines will the Government call up reserves to man the locomotives and run the railways? Will they have the power under the Bill?

Sir Barnett Janner: Is my hon. Friend aware that by the time the Bill is in force, and provided that the present Government remain, there will be no railways at all to run?

Mr. Bence: I assume that since the Bill gives emergency powers to provide means of locomotion the Government will have the power to run the railways and also, for example, to run the ferry services between the Scottish mainland and the islands. There is, however, no need of emergency regulations to run the ferries. The Liberals started the nationalisation of marine shipping in Scotland as a passenger service between the mainland and the islands, but I am surprised that the Liberals are not present to attack a Bill which provides for Government interference over a wide area if at any time it appears that there has been action to deprive the community of the supply and distribution of food, water, fuel or light, or the means of locomotion whether these things
… have occurred, or are about to occur …
The expression "about to occur", as an assessment by the Executive, seems to me to be very loose indeed. It is anyone's guess that something might occur.
I have received a leaflet distributed through the mail which assures me that if the State, by ordinary means of legislation, takes the steel industry into public ownership, the country is doomed and finished, efficiency will dwindle and prices will soar. If, according to those who run the steel industry, this is about to occur, then evidently emergency powers should be taken to take over the steel industry immediately.
The Bill is quite unnecessary. Surely the Stale has all the powers it requires for any emergency. Is there a lack of faith in the ability of the people in this country to improvise in a crisis or emergency? As a community we have always improvised and got over crises of all kinds without the central Government having to take extreme power. This taking over of emergency powers is a tremendous threat and a growing trend. I do not like this creation of a monolithic, central, over-weaning Government.
The instrument embodied in the Bill would be operated by the permanent Civil Service. I have heard Ministers many times under fire for something which has been done by a Department of State and I have felt a certain sympathy for them. In a huge

bureacracy all sorts of mistakes, clerical and otherwise, are made for which the Minister bears responsibility. Why keep piling this responsibility on the Home Secretary? Time and again speeches have been made in the House in defence of the right hon. Gentleman that he has too much responsibility and too much to do. We are told again and again that Ministers have too much responsibility and that the State is taking too much upon itself. The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell), speaking recently in the City, laboured the point that the State is taking unto itself too much economic responsibility.

Sir S. McAdden: Is not the hon. Member making rather heavy weather of this? Did he not hear the speech of his right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) in which he pointed out that these powers have existed for the last 40 years, and under the Labour Government as well, and he criticised the necessity for the slight changes that are made in the Bill? There is not the dramatic change that the hon. Member suggests.

Mr. Bence: It is a dramatic change when temporary changes are made permanent. We do not like too much delegated legislation. We have the annual Army Act which must be passed before the State can run and maintain the Armed Forces. All this was fought for 300 years ago. Why give powers such as these to the central Government? We should be very chary of giving a Government permanent power. I would agree with giving the Government power each year by renewing it annually.

Mr. S. Silverman: I am sorry to interrupt again, but it is not a question of giving them permanent power. The hon. Member for Southend, East (Sir S. McAdden) is quite right in saying that the powers taken in 1920 the Government have had ever since. They still have them. What the Bill does is to extend those powers from one solitary case to every imaginable happening which may cause an emergency at any time. That is the power which they do not need.

Mr. Bence: I appreciate that not only are we considering what are known as emergency powers but we are now being asked to give the Executive power to act in an authoritarian manner over vast areas of the economy and our social life, wherever the Executive may decide that an emergency has arisen.

Mr. Silverman: The hon. Member for the Isle of Ely will believe them if they do not give any reasons at all.

Mr. Bence: Yes, and it might be a quite small area involved. It need not be all the country. It might be some action in just a part of the country, not necessarily affecting the whole country at all. The Government are taking these emergency powers to bring in the Armed Forces to act in such a situation, according to my understanding of the Bill.
This is why I say that there should be Amendments in Committee to limit this tremendous power which the Executive is given by the Bill. With, as I have said, some Welsh Liberal radicalism behind me, I regard this as a very dangerous step towards the creation of a monolithic and authoritarian State machine.

5.11 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. C. M. Woodhouse): This minuscule Measure, as the right hon. and learned Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) described it, to create, in the words of the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence), an overweening central Government machine, has generated a certain amount of suspicion and even a slight degree of passion in the House today. I wish to assure the House that both those reactions to it are groundless.
They are not altogether surprising, of course, because it is the duty of an alert Opposition to be suspicious. If I may say so, I hope that hon. and right hon. Members opposite will continue to be an alert Opposition for many years to come. Moreover, on the face of it, it might well look suspicious that a Bill with a seemingly rather ominous title should be so innocuous in its contents.
If the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East had been present, along with

the Liberals, when my right hon. Friend introduced the Bill, he would have found a great many of the points which he raised answered in my right hon. Friend's speech. I shall do my best to answer now the points which have been raised in the debate since my right hon. Friend spoke. I should prefer to refer the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East to my right hon. Friend's speech for a number of the background points which, I think, he will find are covered there.
The right hon. and learned Member for Newport asked why we introduced the Bill now. Why was this particular time chosen? The first reason was that the relevant provisions of the Emergency Laws (Repeal) Act, 1959, will lapse at the end of this year. It is true, as has been pointed out, that they had been renewed at intervals up to the 1959 Act, but the Defence (Armed Forces) Regulations and, in particular, Defence Regulation, 55(1)(d), to which my right hon. Friend referred, are at present continued only until the end of this year by the 1959 Act. In the course of the passage of that Act through the House an undertaking was given that they would not again be temporarily renewed. In other words, the undertaking was that, on any future occasion when the Government decided to continue these powers, they would do it by putting them into permanent form. This is what we are doing now.

Mr. S. Silverman: No. The hon. Gentleman has misconceived the point. It was said, "If you are going to have powers of this kind, do not renew them en bloc periodically but put them into a Bill", and the point of putting them into a Bill is that the House has the opportunity of reviewing the Bill in Committee, making Amendments and new suggestions or accepting this regulation and refusing that. This Bill does not do anything like that.

Mr. Woodhouse: At this point, I am referring only to Clause 2, and, of course, Clause 2 is open to Amendment in Committee.
The second reason why we introduced the Bill at this time was not, as was suggested, simply to keep the House occupied on a quiet afternoon but was precisely that the matter is not immediately urgent. It is always controversial to introduce a Bill of this


character at a time of crisis or at a time of severe dislocation such as a very bad winter might produce. When the 1920 Act was originally introduced, as the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) pointed out, its timing was intensely controversial because it came in the middle of a coal strike.

Mr. Silverman: I am sorry to intervene again. I must have expressed myself very badly. The 1939 Bill was not controversial at all. Every Member of the House of Commons voted for it, including myself and many people who usually think as I do. There was nothing controversial about it. We believe that, when one has the emergency and can judge it, the Government should be given ample powers to deal with it. We do not want to give them emergency powers when there is no emergency.

Mr. Woodhouse: I do not know whether I was guilty of a slip of the tongue or the hon. Gentleman misheard me. I was referring to the 1920 Act—

Mr. Silverman: I am sorry.

Mr. Woodhouse: —which we are now in process of amending. I think that I am right in saying—he can correct me if he wishes—that the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne regarded that as being very controversial in its time. It came in the middle of a coal strike and a time of great national unsettlement. However. I do not think that in subsequent years, certainly not today, there has been much disagreement that the Government do need to have such powers as are embodied in the 1920 Act to safeguard the well being of the community. If I rightly understood him, the right hon. and learned Member for Newport confirmed that in his speech today.
The timing of the Bill today is unexceptionable because there is no immediate threat of disruption due to industrial action and there is, fortunately, no imminent crisis in the country due to abnormal weather. But if one waits till an emergency is upon us to introduce a Bill like this, one will, naturally, be critised for not having acted earlier.

Mr. Silverman: Why wait 44 years?

Mr. Woodhouse: I am coming to the timing of the particular provisions.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman asked me to give an instance of any situation in which it would be desirable or necessary to pass regulations under the Bill. As my right hon. Friend explained, the Bill makes an extension of the 1920 Act to cover natural events or events in general as distinct from human action, and I am sure that the right hon. and learned Gentleman rightly construed the word "event" as a wider term which subsumes action within it. The Bill is so drafted that it would be possible for an emergency to be declared under it because of a situation resulting from a combination of natural events and human actions. For instance, a situation leading to the declaration of an emergency could have resulted from a combination of industrial action and abnormal weather conditions suet as might have occurred but did not, fortunately, occur during the very severe winter of last year.
It could arise also from a combination of such abnormal weather with a mechanical breakdown of the kind envisaged by my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Sir S. McAdden) as a possibility in nuclear power stations. Examples, then, are abnormal weather conditions such as occurred last year, natural disaster, such as the floods on the East Coast, the major breakdown of plant or machinery, the stoppage of our essential supplies from abroad or any combination a of those eventualities with industrial action, whereas now the powers could only be used in the event of such an emergency arising from industrial action alone.

Sir F. Soskice: Would the Government have used the regulation-making powers conferred by this Bill in relation to last year's bad weather had they then had them, and, if the answer is "Yes", does the Minister accept that the Government were negligent and to blame for not earlier introducing this Measure so as to have those powers available when the weather was bad?

Mr. Woodhouse: It is always difficult to answer hypothetical questions, especially about the past, other than those which arose. I would have hoped that the examples which I gave would have made clear that there would have been a distinct possibility of such an emergency being declared had there been


a combination at that time of industrial action in a major industry with the extreme weather. I do not think that I can go further than that in answering a hypothetical question about the past.
In answer to points raised by other hon. Members, I would make it clear to the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne that we are not contemplating—and, indeed, the Act as amended could hardly be construed as contemplating—emergencies such as the events of 1931, nor such an emergency as my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) referred to in his remarks about the present strain on our Armed Forces. I would suggest to the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East who had a rather horrific conception of the implications of the Bill, that he should look not only at my right hon. Friend's speech but at the limitations of the regulation-making powers of the original Act because those limitations are not touched by this Bill. They will apply to the Bill as extended exactly as they apply to the existing powers.

Mr. S. Silverman: I am sorry to keep interrupting the hon. Gentleman, but he has said that there is nothing in the Bill to enable the Government to use these powers either in the kind of emergency that I forecast or the one that the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) forecast. I suggest respectfully that that is not right, that the words of Section I, after we have made the Amendment which Clause 1 is intended to make, that where there have occurred or are about to occur events of such a nature
as to be calculated, by interfering with the supply and distribution of food, water, fuel or light, or with the means of locomotion, to deprive the community, or any substantial portion of the community of the essentials of life
would cover both the emergencies that have been referred to or any other imaginary emergency. If the Government are giving an undertaking that they will not use these powers in emergencies of that kind, I would be prepared to accept that, and it would minimise my criticism of the Bill, but there is no such limitation in the Bill.

Mr. Woodhouse: I was speaking of the kind of emergencies that we were contemplating, and neither that referred

to by the hon. Member opposite nor that referred to by my hon. Friend are among those which the Government are contemplating. There is another possible contingency in which the powers covered by Clause 1 might be needed, and that is the case of special circumstances arising abroad. The Section as amended would enable the Government in future to act if there were a shortage, or a threatened shortage, of any commodity which would threaten the supply or distribution of food, fuel, water, and so on, so as to deprive the community of the essentials of life. A similar power exists under Defence Regulation 55(1,d). It is a slightly more extensive power and does not require the declaration of an emergency in order that it may be invoked. That Regulation, along with the other measures covered by the 1959 Act, will, as I said earlier, lapse at the end of this year. Although Clause 1 of the new Bill confers a less extensive power, we believe that the slight limitation which is accepted by substituting it for Regulation 55(1,d) is acceptable.
Clause 2 is a measure to make permanent one of the Defence Regulations that is due to lapse. My right hon. Friend explained in some detail the reasons why we considered this necessary, and I would again ask the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East to read his arguments. I would like to give the House a little of the history of that Regulation as it has been applied in use, which, I hope, may serve to persuade the House that there is no, and could be no, sinister intention in the Government's mind in rendering it permanent. It was last used in the context of industrial action in 1960 when an unofficial strike of seamen resulted—and I am sure this will interest the Scottish hon. Member—in the disruption of fuel and food supplies to the Western Isles. On that occasion two naval vessels were used. Troops were used in similar functions on various occasions between 1947 and 1955.
It may interest the House to know that 10 of those occasions occurred during the term of office of the Labour Government and three during the term of office of the present Government. But I draw no political conclusions from those statistics; I merely use them to


illustrate the extreme discretion with which this power has been used. The only other occasions since 1955 when the power has been used have been in the context of natural misfortunes or miss-haps, such as heath fires, flooding, clearing snow, hurricane damage, and so forth. The power has been renewed at intervals since it first came into force by a variety of means. It would take too much of the time of the House to list all the occasions of renewal, but I would like to tell the House that from the researches which I have made I can find no occasion when the renewal of this Regulation was ever the subject of debate or controversy although it has been before the House at short or long intervals on many occasions since it first came into existence.
To sum up. The fact is that this Bill, which has been variously described as "minuscule" and "tyrannical", is by Clause 1 to give an extension of the powers in the principal Act to cover natural or accidental mishaps, as well as those caused by human action which were already covered, and also, incidentally, in the process of adding a provision for dealing with the consequences of events abroad, to place a marginal limitation on the exercise of the powers. Finally, Clause 2 gives permanent status to temporary provisions which have not in practice proved controversial in operation and whose periodical renewal has never been contested.
In commending the Bill to the House, as literary quotations had been in order this afternoon, I turn to Shakespeare for yet another:
If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
it were done quickly.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: May I ask my hon. Friend to deal with the point I raised as to the possibility of amending the Schedule?

Mr. Woodhouse: It would be possible in Committee to put down an Amendment to Clause 2 which would have the effect of amending the Schedule.

5.30 p.m.

Mr. Ede: I am glad that the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) asked that question, because it showed the limited

nature of the opportunities that we shall have of knowing precisely what we are doing if this Bill goes forward to a further stage.
Part C of Schedule 2 of the Emergency Laws (Repeal) Act, 1959, is the Measure that the hon. Member wants us to make permanent. Let us understand exactly what it is. I quote:
The Admiralty, the Army Council or the Air Council may by order authorise officers and men of Her Majesty's naval, military or air forces under their respective control to be temporarily employed in agricultural work or such other work as may be approved in accordance with instructions issued by the Admiralty, the Army Council or the Air Council, as the case may be, as being urgent work of national importance, and thereupon it shall be the duty of every person subject to the Naval Discipline Act, military law or air force law to obey any command given by his superior offices in relation to such employment, and every such command shall be deemed to be a lawful command within the meaning of the Naval Discipline Act, the Army Act, 1955, or the Air Force Act, 1955, as the case may be.
That is to say, it authorises the use of the Armed Forces of the Crown and imposes a liability on every member of such forces to carry out the orders given by his superior officer as the result of the authorisation by the Admiralty, the Army Council and the Air Council.
It appears to give, first of all, the power to make the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely, if he happens to be called up for service at that time, a sort of foreman of a group of agricultural labourers. That seems to be the main purpose of Part C of Schedule 2 of the Act. I knew, and I am prepared to accept, that such duty by the Armed Forces is generally welcomed by them. After all, it is quite a legitimate recreation after "square-bashing" to be put on to doing something useful and to be able to feel at the end of a day's work when one is dismissed that one has done something add to the production of real wealth in the country. That is what the Bill proposes to do.
I have heard no justification today for suggesting that the agricultural labourers of the country are so angered by the failure to get what they regard as a just decision from the Agricultural Wages Board that they are likely to down tools and stop production of food.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: The right hon. Gentleman may recollect that in 1947, when he wits a member of the Govern-


ment of that day, there were very severe floods in the Fens, which the Army were very helpful in dealing with. I hope that he will bear in mind the fact that the Army has behaved magnificently on these occasions and that he is doing no help to recruiting by what he has been saying.

Mr. Ede: I said that I know from my own experience the pleasure that the Army gets on occasions when men are taken off the barrack square and put on to something that is useful and productive.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: Would the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that he is suggesting that the only thing that the Army ever does that is useful is to go to the aid of agriculture. Surely Lo goodness, there was never a more inappropriate time, in view of what is happening in Cyprus, to say a thing like that.

Mr. Ede: I have not said anything that could be taken in that light. I have no doubt that if an emergency arose and Part C of Schedule 2 was put into operation, it would be received by those troops who come under it as a very welcome change from ordinary Army life. I cannot see that that has anything to do with restricting recruiting. I can think of many other things that would cheer up recruiting, but I do not regard that as being anything detrimental to recruiting.
I think that the point which the hon. Member originally raised, whether there was an opportunity of amending the Defence Regulations, was well worth making. I strongly support the attitude that he adopted. It is not for me to venture too far on this occasion because I should get into conflict with the Chair, which would be far worse than getting into conflict with the hon. Member.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: With that I would agree.

Mr. Ede: I should like to see the kind of Amendment introduced which would carry out what the hon. Member wants to do—an Amendment with the phrases that I have read out put into the new Measure. I suggest that the reference should be withdrawn in its present form and the words that I have read

out repealed in this Bill and words to take their place put in as an Amendment in Committee. That, I understand, is what the hon. Member wanted to do. As far as that goes, I am completely behind him and I hope that sufficient ingenuity will be displayed among back benchers on both sides of the House to be able to get it. I think that the Bill, when it becomes an Act, will do something well worth while.
I cannot see what has caused the Government to seize this as the time to bring this Measure before the House. I agree with what my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) said about that. The Government should be able to point to something quite definite and not to vague fears about what may happen if we get a lot of cold weather and Dr. Beeching has all his own way with the transport system. That appears to me the main fear. I know from my own experience that the problem of keeping the flow of traffic going when industrial disputes coincide with some natural phenomena which make movement of goods and people difficult can cause great anxiety in the Home Office and involve many people in much discomfort and difficulty.
Looking on the scene today, I am surprised at the extent to which people will put up with the Government's actions without trying to do anything drastic to hinder them from engaging in the worst of fell purposes. I support what was said by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Newport. I share all the anxieties of my hon. Friends the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) and Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence). The more power a Government gets in this kind of relationship the more difficult it is to restrain some people from wanting to put the power into practice. The number of Measures which have been passed to deal with quite legitimate points and which have subsequently been used to hinder the ordinary legitimate purposes of people are far too many to allow us to regard fresh examples with equanimity.
A Measure was passed to impose severe penalties on people who administered oaths. The only time that it was used was when the Tolpuddle labourers in 1834 formed their trade


union. They went through some kind of friendly society procedure by which when a new member was admitted an oath was administered to him. That was the cause of their being transported to Australia.
If the Government get these powers, I hope that we shall have an assurance that they will be used for nothing more than has been explained to us this afternoon, because then they will never be used at all.

Mr. R. T. Paget: Any suspicions which one might have had about the purposes of the Bill were not entirely alleviated by the quotation chosen by the Joint Under-Secretary of State in recommending it. As far as I can recollect, the quotation continues, "In firmer purpose give me the dagger."

Mr. Woodhouse: I should like leave briefly to utter two final sentences. I assure the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) that no such dark thought is in the Government's mind. I am sure that it would not be in the mind of any Government.
On a more serious point, in order that I should not show disrespect to the Chair, I should add the words, "subject to the ruling of the Chair" to the answer which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) when he intervened at the end of my speech.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

WAR DAMAGE [MONEY]

Resolution reported,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make provision for expediting the completion of payments under the War Damage Act 1943, the War Damage (Public Utility Undertakings, &amp;c.) Act 1949 and the War Damage (Clearance Payments) Act 1960 to dissolve the War Damage Commission and transfer to the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, or, in the case of payments under section 71 of the said Act of 1943, to the Minister of Transport or the Secretary of State, the functions of the War Damage Commission and any functions which remain to be performed under those Acts by the Board of

Trade; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid, it is expedient to authorise:—
(a) the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any sums required for paying remuneration or allowances to War Damage Reviewing Commissioners appointed under the said Act of the present Session; and
(b) the payment into the Exchequer of moneys standing to the credit of the War Damage (Mutual Insurance Funds Unclaimed Balances) Account.

Resolution agreed to.

Orders of the Day — WAR DAMAGE BILL

Considered in Committee.

[Sir WILLIAM ANSTRUTHER-GRAY in the Chair]

Clauses 1 to 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 4.—(LAND HELD FOR CHARITABLE PURPOSES.)

Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.

5.45 p.m.

The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Maurice Macmillan): I should say a few words about Clause 4, which applies the four-year limit to claims in respect of war damaged churches and other properties held for charitable purposes. I assure the Committee that there will be no difficulty in implementing the Clause. Certainly the Churches Main Committee, which in this matter represents virtually all the main religious bodies in the country, has not raised any difficulty. Consultations are proceeding and arrangements will be made to bring the provisions of the Clause, including the time limit, to the attention of individuals concerned and to ensure that proper practices are known and understood.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 5 to 7 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 8.—(WINDING UP OF UNCLAIMED BALANCES ACCOUNT.)

Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.

Mr. M. Macmillan: During the Second Reading of the Bill, the right hon. and learned Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) raised a number of points about the Unclaimed Balances Account arising from this Clause. He asked specifically about the sum remaining in the account, whether the amounts involved were large or small, and whether steps had been, or would be, taken to make known the existence of these claims.
I must first apologise to the Committee and to the right hon. and learned Member for Newport for unintentionally misleading them about the nature of these claims. I am afraid that we all assumed in the debate that they referred to war damage payments. In fact, they refer to war damage premiums.
The sum in the Account, about £6,000, as my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary said, consists of the residue of certain premiums paid by policy holders into some mutual insurance associations formed at the beginning of the war to insure against war risks to property. These associations were wound up under the War Damage Act in 1941 and the funds were distributed to the policy holders concerned in accordance with the provisions of that Act. At that time, some policy holders could not be traced. The Board of Trade did its best to trace them. Once it was satisfied that all reasonable steps had been taken to trace these people, it arranged for the unclaimed moneys to be paid into a special account at the Bank of England.
The figure of £6,000 is made up of premiums which ranged from about £5 to about £20. Only 12 claims, amounting to about £160, have been made on the fund since it was deposited at the Bank of England in 1942, and most of that total was repaid shortly after the war.
I must again apologise to the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Newport for misleading him. There was a payment in 1955. My hon. Friend the Financial Secretary said that he would check his statement that the last payment was made in 1946. A small payment was, however, made in 1955.
Since 1942, no special efforts have been made to trace possible claimants, but the Board of Trade proposes, as soon as the Bill becomes law, to issue a Press notice calling attention to the fact that

the repayment of moneys paid into the Unclaimed Balances Account can still be made provided that application is made to the Board before 1st October, 1964.
I hope that this answers the right hon. and learned Gentleman. No question of hardship is involved since the money represents premiums paid under private schemes in anticipation of the war damage scheme. The fact that the money represents premiums which have been unclaimed, rather than payments due for damage which could not be made because claimants had disappeared or changed their address, makes it fairly certain that no hardship is caused to anybody.

Sir Frank Soskice: We are all grateful to the Minister for the slight correction which he has made to what the House was told on Second Reading. These premiums, I gather, relate to some private insurance scheme which preceded the war damage scheme. I agree that it appears to be extremely unlikely that one would now be able to trace those who are entitled to repayment of small sums of £6 and the like.
I do not know whether interest was charged to the Account and what a figure of £6 paid in 1940, with interest grossed up at compound interest, less Income Tax, would now provide, but an original figure of £6 would probably now be unrecognisable. I should agree, however, that justice would be done if the matter were advertised and possible claimants given until October, 1964, to make claims. Perhaps another year would be required to calculate the exact amount represented by the original sums.
I am grateful to the Minister for what he has said and I entirely accept it.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 9 to 14 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedules 1 to 3 agreed to.

Bill reported, without Amendment.

5.55 p.m.

Mr. Maurice Macmillan: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I have nothing to add except to thank the House and the right hon. and learned Member for Newport (Sir. F. Soskice)


for their help in the speedy passage of this useful Measure. I am glad to have been able to reassure the House that the rights of the individual have been safeguarded and that the administration will be smooth enough to ensure that the time limit is reasonable. In reply to the point raised by the right hon. and learned Gentleman, I am glad to confirm that the expert advice which served the War Damage Commission so well will continue to be available, and that the transfer of expert staff will ensure that no extra burden is placed upon the Inland Revenue.
The House will, I think, agree that all who have been concerned with the work of the War Damage Commission in the early days, and more recently, can look back with pride at the way their task was handled and, now that it is virtually complete, can rest content that it has been formally ended with fairness, efficiency and dignity.

5.57 p.m.

Sir F. Soskice: I should certainly respond to what the Minister has said on Third Reading. Clearly, this is not a Measure which requires lengthy speeches at this stage. I concur with the Economic Secretary to the Treasury in his word of farewell and expression of gratitude to the many people concerned in administering this gigantic scheme.
I am glad to hear that the slight anxiety voiced during Second Reading of the Bill about whether the Inland Revenue would be overburdened by the task of having to discharge the remaining claims is an anxiety which need not press upon us. I quite understand that the transfer of staff will be adequate to shoulder the new burden which is placed upon that Department.
I conclude simply by thanking the Ministers for the clarity and care with which they have presented this Measure and expounded its purposes and provisions to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

Orders of the Day — SCOTTISH CERTIFICATE OF EDUCATION EXAMINATION BOARD

5.58 p.m.

Mr. William Hannan: I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Scottish Certificate of Education Examination Board Regulations, 1963 (S.I., 1953, No. 2131), dated 18th December, 1963, a copy of which was laid before this House on 3rd January, be annulled.
It is worth while noting the dates contained in the Motion. The House will note that the Regulations were laid on 18th December, only two days before the House rose for the Christmas Recess. Since these provisions are extremely important for the future of Scottish education, the question is raised in our minds whether the Government have handled this matter in the best way.
I have no wish to introduce political acrimony into this of all debates, but what has happened on this occasion savours too much of the usual habit of the Government, during Summer and other Recesses, of using devices of this character sometimes to avoid undesirable debates and publicity. It is important to point out that these Regulations were presented or. 18th December and were laid before the House on 3rd January. The House did not resume until 14th January. Indeed, the Regulations were in operation four days before the House reassembled.
I must make the point to the Under-Secretary of State that we protest, however mildly it may seem, about the treatment of the Opposition in being left with insufficient time for full consideration. It was only by the Opposition being alert and being alerted to the position at the last moment that the Prayer was tabled, otherwise not a word would have been said about the hon. Lady's Regulations.
The importance of the Regulations can be judged from the fact that the proposed new Examination Board will control the future curricula in the schools. I will not develop this point further than to refer to the usual admirable speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs (Mr. Malcolm MacPherson) in Committee, whim he pointed out most


effectively that the Regulations which are now before the House would be extremely important in that regard.
A vital question which is involved in the new Regulations and which the new Board will require to face is what will happen concerning the proposed introduction of Advanced levels in Scotland. As the noble Lady knows, this is something new to us, and I should like to ask one or two questions about it. Originally, it was intended to introduce these A levels in 1965. That intention was departed from and it was then proposed that it should be in 1966. Will the new Board under these Regulations have power to decide whether or not to introduce these A-levels? Can the noble Lady tell us that? As I understand it, it has not yet been finally decided to introduce them. Will it be left to the Board? Will the approval of the Secretary of State be required? Moreover, can the noble Lady tell us what the appointed day is when the Board will start conducting the examinations? I should be grateful if she would tell me. Some recent intimations which may have dealt with this matter may have escaped me.
I come to Regulation 8 and start upon the principal points I have in mind. Regulation 8 speaks of the term of office of the chairman and other members of the Board. It says that each
shall hold office in accordance with the terms of his appointment.
Can the noble Lady indicate what term the Secretary of State may have in mind for the chairman? Would it be three years, or five years? Can she say also what is to be the term for the other members? I think this is important in the sense that continuity and experience over some period would be, I should imagine, of value to those who are asked to serve on this Board.
All of us, I think, accept as not only desirable but right that the Board itself shall appoint a finance committee as provided in Regulation 9(1), which makes it quite clear that the members of any sub-committee which the finance committee can in turn appoint shall themselves be members of the finance committee.
Having got that clear we come to the next three paragraphs of the Regulation, and on these I think we want elucidation from the noble Lady. Whereas the finance committee consists largely of Board members, the Board
may appoint such other Committees as they think fit and such other Committees may"—
in turn—
appoint such Sub-Committees or Subject Panels as they think fit
in their turn. That is paragraph (2), but paragraph (3) says that the membership of any such other sub-committees or subject panels need not be members of the Board. I should like some information about this. What is the purpose behind it? Why should it be necessary to go outside the Board for these people?
When the Bill was in Committee upstairs we had strong arguments about what should be the number of the members of the Board itself, some hon. Members saying there would be far too many, and others that it would not be large enough, trying to urge upon the noble Lady that there should be on the Board people of other categories than teachers and those interested in education. Personally, if it is to be an examination board I think teachers ought to be in the preponderance; we can leave the argument about the number of people of other categories. But having argued so strongly against some of our Amendments in Committee on the Bill, why do the Government now, under these Regulations, go so wide as to make it possible that membership of such other committees of the Board may include persons who are not members of the Board? Is not the position that we are to have sub-committees wholly consisting of people who are not members of the Board at all? This seems, to me at least, to be extremely wide.
Moreover, by paragraph (4),
The Board may delegate to any Committee appointed under paragraphs (1) and (2) of this regulation any of their functions.…
The Board, which is responsible under these Regulations, can delegate any of its functions to a committee, and the committee can delegate to a subcommittee or subject panel whose members need not be members of the Board at all. What is the purpose behind that?


I shall not dilate upon the point any further, but I want to know why we are going so, wide after appointing such a number of people to the Board, why we need to go outside the Board in this way for this purpose.
I shall not deal with Regulation 10 about proceedings but come to Regulation 11(3):
The Board shall not have power to borrow money other than power to borrow for periods not exceeding six months on overdraft.…
What are the circumstances in which the noble Lady visualises the Board will require an overdraft? In Committee on the Bill we talked about the allocation of money, the adequacy or inadequacy of which we debated.
Similarly, Regulation 12 (1) says:
The Board shall keep proper accounts of all sums received or paid by them.
In what circumstances does the noble Lady think the Board can receive moneys other than those coming from the Secretary of State and the Government? This is a question, too, which deserves an answer. Is it, for example, intended that some charge should be levied against local authorities in respect of examinations? Who sustains the cost of these examinations at the moment? In addition to being responsible for conducting the examinations, this Board has also the duty of tendering advice on secondary modern education to the Sectary of State.
There is another point I should perhaps add in this connection. If the local authorities are going to be asked to pay, will they be reimbursed? Has any method of payment been arrived at?
By Regulation 14 the Board is being empowered to
employ such whole-time and part-time officers, servants and agents as they require to enable them to carry out their functions.
All of us would agree that for this most important function we do not want such a board to be hindered in the proper discharge of its duties, but this Regulation seems extremely wide. Can the noble Lady indicate whether any estimate has been made of the manpower which may possibly be needed? For example, can she tell us what manpower is involved in the present examinations department? How many

teachers are involved? How many invigilators? Are all these covered by the terms of this Regulation? And how many are to be used in the future? We never make progess in these matters with progressive ideas. There is always the danger of empire building. When I read these Regulations and see the various activities involved and the extent to which tie tentacles can be spread down to committees and study groups, the more do I want to know where it is all going to end.
I have drawn attention to the points which seem to me to be important. I do not want to detain the House longer than is necessary, as I know that some of my hon. Friends are anxious to follow with other points which, no doubt, will have occurred to them.

6.11 p.m.

Mr. G. M. Thomson: Like my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan), I wish to raise a number of points arising from these Regulations, and I should like to begin by making a complaint about the way in which the Government have timed this Statutory Instrument. The hon. Lady the Under-Secretary of State will recollect that in the Committee proceedings on the Education (Scotland) Bill we had a long argument about the way in which this Examination Board should be set up. We on this side of the House pressed at considerable length that this Board was sufficiently important to warrant an affirmative Resolution for its setting up. I think that we came near to persuading the hon. Lady that we were right, but St. Andrew's House was too much for her.
On 19th March, 1963, in the Standing Committee, she said, in extenuation of the Government's view:
We must allow plenty of time for all those concerned to make their representations. We then have to give Parliament 40 days to consider them—it is true, that under the negative resolution procedure, but that gives Members of Parliament an opportunity to make representations to the Secretary of State. Therefore, the Clause was framed in this way quite deliberately to give the flexibility that was required."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Scottish Standing Committee, 19th March, 1963; c. 6.]
We may have had 40 days in the Parliamentary sense of the term to consider these Regulations, but we have certainly not had anything like 40 days in the sense in which ordinary Members of Par-


liament are concerned. I should like to know from the hon. Lady what sort of compulsion was on the Government to table these Regulations in the way they have. Why did they table them in a couple of days before the House rose for the Christmas Recess? Why were they timed to come into operation on 10th January, before the House of Commons resumed?
We are all painfully aware that there is an element of farce in the negative procedure, and that so often we are asked to rubber-stamp Orders, sometimes of great importance, after they have become part of the law of the land. But the Government had ample reason to know how important we considered these Regulations; and to bring in the Regulations in this way seems to treat the consideration that was given to this matter in Committee very lightly indeed. It is only by the sheerest luck that the Parliamentary timetable is such that we have any proper opportunity to discuss this matter at all.
As the hon. Lady knows, there is another Prayer down for discussion tonight. I understand that the hon. Member for Leicester, North-West (Sir B. Janner), who is to move that Prayer, feels as strongly as we do about the way in which the Government have acted in their timing. If we had had a normal timetable a large number of Scottish Members would have had to divide between them something like 90 minutes, or even less. The fact that we have rather more time to deal with these matters than we otherwise would have done is certainly nothing to do with the planning of the Government or their sense of responsibility to the House.
So much for the way the Government have treated these Regulations and the Opposition's desires in the matter. It seems to us that these are immensely important Regulations. In fact, in terms of their actual effect on the whole Scottish education system, they are likely to be as important as any fairly substantial piece of legislation that we shall ever have before us. For these reasons we want to get some further information from the Government.
I should like to know whether the hon. Lady is in a position to announce the name of the chairman of the pro-

posed Examination Board. He will occupy a very important rôle in Scottish education, and will be in a position to exercise influence on what goes on in the schools—certainly comparable to any influence the hon. Lady is able to exercise as the responsible Minister. It seems likely that as the years go by and a larger proportion of our children come within the responsibility of the Examination Board, that influence will grow.
There has been considerable argument about the composition of this Board and about the degree to which it should be composed of people with some sort of prefessional educational experience. I understand that despite various representations, only one minor change has been made in the Regulations since they were originally published. I do not accept the view that this Board ought to be composed entirely of educationists. I believe its public significance is so great that this is one case where education is far too important a matter to be left to the teachers. When one comes down to the subject panels and one is dealing with the setting of the questions and, presumably, the arrangements for marking the papers, I think this certainly is a case where the professional educationists should be left to do the job. Nevertheless, I welcome the lay element on the Board as a whole.
Can the Minister give some information about the effect this will have on the work of the Scottish Education Department? As I understand it, until now the leaving certificate examinations in Scotland have been conducted directly by the Scottish Education Department. It has, I believe, used Scottish teachers in various ways to help it, but it has had the overall responsibility. We have never been told how many inspectors, for instance, were engaged in this activity. I should like to know whether the inspectorate is still going to participate in the work of this Board.
What I have particularly in mind is the fact that although there has been a spectacular increase in the number of children taking the leaving certificate examination—indeed, it is one of the reasons for setting up the Board; the number has increased from 18,000 two or three years ago to 42,000 last year—this is still a small minority of the


total number of young people in our secondary schools. I believe that last year there were 292,000 young people in our secondary schools. Important though the Examination Board will be in its effect on the school system, on the curricula and on the attitude of the teachers, nevertheless at the moment it will affect only 42,000 out of nearly 300,000.
We have had an important announcement from the Government that at last the day has been fixed for the raising of the school leaving age, and this is an immense challenge to everybody involved in education. If the raising of the school leaving age is to be carried through effectively and is not to break the hearts of the teachers but make the kind of contribution to our national well-being that we all desire—I firmly believe the decision was right—there must be a tremendous amount of hard constructive thinking about changes in the curricula in our schools for the young people who will stay on till 16 but who are not of an academic bent and, therefore, will not be the sort of people who will be concerned with the operations of the Examination Board. I do nor want to take the matter further than that at the moment except to ask whether there will be a real release of the inspectorate from the job of carrying out the leaving certificate examination and whether there is any thought of altering the curriculum for the other young people who will not go through these examinations.
The Order contains provision for an annual report. This is because the hon. Lady accepted an Opposition Amendment to this effect during the passing of the Act. I hope that the report will be adequate and useful. I hope, too, that the members of the Board—and this is why the personality of the chairman will be so important—will take a fairly wide view of their responsibilities to Scottish education.
At the moment, for our information on the leaving certificate examinations, we are confined to one or two pages in the annual report "Education in Scotland". To the lay reader at least, there is not a great deal of information about the examinations in those pages. I would like to see the annual report of the Examination Board give much

fuller information on the children taking the examination. All we are told now is the number of presentations and passes. But what it is equally important to know is the number of young people studying a particular subject and not being submitted for the examination.
We are all aware of the practice of teachers sometimes only presenting those pupils likeliest to pass so that they can claim a high percentage rate of passes. But what matters in judging the quality of the teacher is not the percentage of those who are presented and who pass out the percentage of those who are not presented. That is a figure we do not get now.
I hope that the Examination Board will give us some information about the university entrance qualifications. A member of the Scottish Universities Entrance Board will represent it on the Examination Board and I hope that both sides will make a genuine effort—I do not want to make this more difficult than it might otherwise be—to establish good personal relations between the two Boards. I hope that those relations will lead, in the not too distant future, to the Universities Entrance Board deciding that it can usefully disband and amalgamate with the Examination Board, for that would be more in the public interest.
Meanwhile, I hope that the figures in the annual report will give an indication of the number of young people emerging from Scottish schools with university entrance qualifications, so that we may have rather more enlightenment about the number of youngsters who are able to get to university and make better judgment of whether university accommodation is adequate.
I hope that we shall also get a fairly good indication in the report of how the examinations are working. At the moment, there is a public dialogue in some of the education journals between the Department and the teachers, considering last year's examinations. This is useful for those actively engaged in education and the new annual report will be an ideal vehicle to give such consideration a more permanent place in education records.
I would have liked to have seen in last year's Education in Scotland a much fuller account of the first year of the new


Ordinary level certificate. Its introduction was in many ways a milestone in Scottish education development and it has many interesting features. The number of young people who took O-level was very encouraging but until we get more detailed information we shall not get the overall picture of what has been happening.
For instance, the new O-level contains modem studies as a subject. I had been urging this for some time as a "trail blazer" which Scottish education should undertake. The subject, in effect, gives people at O-level a view of the world in which they live. The syllabus is quite historic in its way, because it deliberately tries to create in the pupil some sort of world consciousness as well as national consciousness. Education has a vital rôle in getting a more peaceful and constructive world, and we must all learn that we are citizens not only of our own communities but of a world community that is a reality. The Scottish education syllabus is now teaching just that.
I have been trying to persuade the English Ministers concerned to adopt this as well, but they say they cannot do so because the English examination boards are independent and not subject to advice. I hope that the Scottish Board will still be sufficiently responsible to the Government so that we can ask questions about its activities in the House.
I was interested by the figures, given in the last report Education in Scotland of the number of young people sitting for the various O-level subjects. When one gets away from what one might call conventional subjects, the numbers are very small. In modern studies there were 340 presentations; in economic organisation 389; in dress and design 700 and in building drawing 73.
Here we come back to the problem of those staying on at school for another year. Not all are of the type to benefit from an examination system, but there is considerable overlapping and surely there must be a number who could take O-level certificates in these subjects, linking them relevantly to the work they will do after school. They would find school much more stimulating and interesting if this were done. I hope

that the annual report will not only give figures but will also try to stimulate new thinking and experimentation in Scottish schools. I should also like an assurance from the hon. Lady that in the new financial arrangements there will be no question of charging fees to Scottish parents and children for sitting the examinations.
The setting up of the Board is a notable change in education and an inevitable one, given the number of people sitting examinations. It is also thoroughly desirable in that it will help those professionally engaged in education to feel that they have a much bigger stake in the system. It is a legitimate stake.
Its success will depend a great deal on the co-operation of the teachers. There have been a number of encouraging developments in Scottish education over the last two or three years in this respect. We are all awaiting the setting up of a General Teaching Council. As the hon. Lady knows, however, at least one disturbing development is the difficulty over salary negotiating machinery. It would not be in order for me to say anything about that now, but the success of these proposals will depend on carrying the Scottish teachers along in their support.
I hope, therefore, that, in facing the difficulties which have arisen, great patience will be shown and a really serious attempt made to give the teachers an opportunity to resolve those difficulties so that these hopeful developments can go on and bring greater benefit to Scottish education.

6.30 p.m.

Mr. Malcolm MacPherson: My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) and my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) have both stressed the importance of this new development, and that is the predominant idea in my own mind. It is very important and it may have wide ramifications. Judging from the number of detailed points which they made additionally, one might think that not many would be left even at so early a stage of the debate, but there are several details which I should like to mention.
Taking paragraphs (a) and (b) of Regulation 5(1) together with what has been said about the Scottish Universities Entrance Board, it would be helpful if the noble Lady would tell us rather more about the co-existence—if the Entrance Board lasts long enough for a word like that to be used—of these two bodies in practice. To what extent will they be doing the same work? The Entrance Board attracted some notoriety because of its attitude to one or two African languages. This would seem to be outside the purview of the new Board, but is it? If not, I hope that this will be the kind of thing which the noble Lady will tell us more about.
The Board is to advise the Secretary of State on the conduct of examinations. With a wide interpretation, that gives rise to much speculation about the range of interests of the Clause. I hope that that range will be very wide and that the Board will have considerable responsibility in these matters and not be strictly connected directly with the examination room and examination scripts but also with the places of examinations, not only with the school curriculum but with the relationships between one kind of education and another and between one kind of education institution and another.
Regulation 5(2) says:
Subject to the approval of the Secretary of State, the Board may enter into arrangements to perform functions or provide services on behalf of any other examining body or authority.…
What has the noble Lady in mind? There are many examining bodies with various levels corresponding in age and, perhaps, in academic or non-academic achievement to, roughly, the secondary stage of education. Many of these examinations are conducted by professional or semi-professional bodies and there are many other examinations of considerable importance linked more with industry than with the professions.
The range is rather too wide for me to pick out an individual case, but the noble Lady will know of the many instances of which one naturally thinks. What does she envisage? Does she envisage that on the initiative of the new Board, and perhaps as the need is felt by other organisations to bring in the new Board, the Board will gradually become more

and more, of not the one examining body, at least the main examining body over a much wider range than is now represented by school examinations?
Regulation 5(2) does not refer specifically to the Scottish Certificate of Education examinations and one presumes that that is deliberate and that the Board is to have a purview a great deal wider than those examinations. I hope that the Board will have that purview and that it will De in a position to exercise this kind of authority, with a great deal of freedom to discuss with the bodies and professions concerned and to make suitable arrangements to act in a much wider sense than a simple examining body such as the Department now is. I do not say anything against the Department and I agree with those who have praised its conduct of examinations as they are, but it is restricted to schools and to methods and arrangements suitable to that restriction. I hope that the new Board will have much wider scope and appropriate powers. I hope that the hon. Lady will enlighten us about that.
Do the words "any other examining body" include any body which may be set up in future, or must it be a body now conducting examinations? Might it be a body with strong professional or industrial interests which does not itself conduct examinations, but which would like to have its ideas put into effect in examinations? Could such a body negotiate with the new Board and arrange for the Board to undertake its examining for it?
My hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East asked for the name of the chairman of the new Board. I do not go as far as that, although if the hon. Lady can tell us the name, so much the better. If not, will she at least tell us what the Government have in mind? Is he to be a professional teacher, a professional administrator, or a complete outsider—for instance, a public figure? The choice is very wide. In the absence of the name of the chairman, can we be told what the nature of the Board itself is likely to be?
Can we be given any information about regulation 6 (2,a) which says:
Thirty-three members from among persons nominated …
On what basis is the choice from among the nominations to be made? If the universities, for instance—I hope that they


will not, and I imagine that they will not—happen to nominate people who are all administrators and officials rather than teachers, will the noble Lady tell them that they must nominate a list which includes teachers? If so, and if she got such a list, would she tend to take teachers rather than registrars, for instance, even though the registrars may be admirable persons?
In an earlier discussion the noble Lady said that the majority of the Board would be university and school teachers. The Regulations provide that eight members of the Board are to come from the universities, two from the central institutions and two from the colleges of education, presumably nominated by the authorities in each case. The governing bodies which are mentioned might well consist of teachers and I should expect the majority of these members to be teachers. Is this what the noble Lady has in mind? This would make a dozen teachers from higher education and there would be another dozen from the schools, making 24 teachers out of a total membership of 33. Is this the kind of proportion of practising teachers which the hon. Lady has in mind? Or does the hon. Lady envisage having a fairly substantial number of non-teachers—officials, administrators, and people of that kind—on the Board?
One sees that 12 members are to be drawn from teachers' associations recognised as representing the interests of teachers employed in educational establishments. Which associations would the hon. Lady include? Would she include the Association of Head Masters? I think that in Scotland the Association of Head Masters is separate from the Association of Head Mistresses. Would the hon. Lady expect nominations from both those Associations? What about the Association of University Teachers? If that Association thought that it ought to put forward a nomination in addition to the official university nomination, would that be possible? I hope that the hon. Lady will give us more information than one is able to glean merely from reading these Regulations.
I am a little puzzled about the set-up in Regulation 9, just as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) was puzzled. I gather that there may be many subject panels, and that they may consist of a considerable number of people, but it appears that they will be at two removes from the Board. They are to be appointed not by the Board but by committees appointed by the Board. That may work out all right in practice, but I am sufficiently doubtful about the wisdom of this proposal to ask why this arrangement has been made.
One would have thought that the Board would have wanted to appoint these subject panels itself, and that leads one to ask what function the Board will perform? If these panels are to be responsible for setting papers and for examining the scripts, how close will the members of the Board be to the actual business of examining? What will the Board be doing compared with what the subject panels will be doing?
I think that we need some help on that, because one gets the impression that under the set-up proposed in Regulation 9 the Board will be a sort of general headpiece and will not be in touch with what is going on. I do not for a moment suppose that that is the intention, but that is the suspicion that one gets from reading Regulation 9, and I hope that the noble Lady will be able to give us some assurances on the matter.
Regulation 14 says that the Board may employ whole-time and part-time officers, and may pay them certain salaries. What procedure will be adopted for the appointment and payment of examiners? I have occasionally asked qualified and experienced teachers whether they have done any examining for the Scottish Education Department. The answer has often been, "No, because the fees are not good enough". Do the Government propose to pay fees which will attract the right kind of people to do this job? We must ensure not merely that we get a sufficient number of people to apply but that we get properly qualified people who can be appointed as examiners. We have the example of the Civil Service Commissioners who, over the years, have built


up a staff with first-rate qualifications in their subjects. They are first-class examiners, and they know how to assess a candidate's ability. In selecting part-time examiners the Government must exercise the greatest care to make sure that they have the necessary qualifications. Have the Government in mind the standard set by the Civil Service Commissioners?
The Regulations lay down what appears to be an odd way of financing the Board. I leave this subject to be dealt with by those who have greater knowledge of the subject than I have, but I am not convinced that the Government have chosen the right way of dealing with the matter. I hope that the hon. Lady will be able to enlighten us on the points raised by my hon. Friends and on the matters which I have raised.

6.46 p.m.

Mr. William Small: It seems to me that if we are proposing to ask highly qualified people to take on the duties outlined in these Regulations, we should give them some idea of how much of their time they will be required to give up to perform those duties.
One of the functions of the Board is to appoint a finance committee, and Regulation No. 9 says that that finance committee may appoint such sub-committees as it thinks fit. Paragraph (4) of that Regulation says:
The Board may delegate to any Committee appointed under paragraphs (1) and (2) of this regulation any of their functions, except that functions relating to finance may be delegated only to the Finance Committee.
It appears that the Board will be able to delegate its functions to subcommittees, and there will not be monthly, or quarterly, or annual meeting at which the Board can ratify decisions taken by any of those subcommittees.
Regulation No. 7 provides that the Secretary of State may appoint an assessor. He will have no voting powers, but he will be able to speak at board meetings. It says that the assessor
shall not be entitled to vote except"—
and this seems rather peculiar to me—
a meetings of any Committee"—

that could be the finance committee—
or Sub-Committee or Subject Panel of which he has been appointed a member.
It seems peculiar that the Board is being given power to delegate its functions to people who may not have the qualifications or the experience to deal with, for instance, examination papers. Surely it is reasonable to ensure that people who are asked to undertake that duty are qualified to do so.
The intention is to ask people with experience in industry, or who have qualifications which are acceptable to the Secretary of State, to become members of the Board. It seems only fair that they should be told how much of their time will be occupied in carrying out the functions of the Board. Unless that information is made known, qualified people may not be prepared to devote a considerable amount of their time to performing this very useful task. Once on the Board, the member decides when it is time to retire, except under the provisions of Regulation 8(2,c), which provides that his place may be declared vacant:
where in the opinion of the Secretary of State he becomes incapacitated to hold office.…
That provisions could well have been left out altogether.
There are many other things that I would have liked to refer to but I do not want to take up the time of the House. I must point out, however, that I am not in full accord with the generalities of these provisions at present.

6.50 p.m.

Mr. Cyril Bence: I rise to ask a question on Regulation 5(2). My hon. Friend the Member for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs (Mr. Malcolm MacPherson) has referred to it, but I want to raise the point in connection with a specific case. We recently gave a Second Reading to the Industrial Training In fact, I believe that it has now gone to another place. Clause 2 of that Bill set up industrial training boards. The Clause provides that the boards shall consider
the standards to be attained as a result of the training and the methods of ascertaining whether those standards have been attained…


Subsection (1,d) provides that the boards
may apply or make arrangements for the application of selection tests …
In the Regulations which we are now considering, Regulation 5(2) says that
Subject to the approval of the Secretary of State, the Board may enter into arrangements to perform functions or provide services on behalf of any other examining body or authority …
It seems to me that the Regulations there provide that this Board shall impose tests of people who have been undergoing industrial training. In those circumstances I should like to know whether the Board will be able to function within an industrial training board.
I concede that in the Board to be set up under these Regulations four members will be persons who have experience in industry, but there is nothing to provide that they are the people who may be elected to an industrial training board which is being set up under the Bill to which I have referred.
Two other institutions about which I at once thought were the Institution of of Mechanical Engineers and the Institution of Electrical Engineers. I do not know much about the electrical engineers, but among the examinations of the mechanical engineers there is one for the Higher National Certificate and also the City and Guilds. Will the Board to be set up under the Regulations be able to second its members to the Institution of Mechnical Engineers? Can its members serve on the representative bodies of various other institutions? Many such bodies give diplomas in accountancy, chiropody, physiotherapy, and so on. Will the Board that we are here setting up have powers to link up with those institutions? Will it have any say in setting the standards of examination and thereby provide that any diplomas awarded by these institutions shall qualify for recognition by universities, secretarial colleges and other organisations in the Scottish educational system? At present, the holder of a diploma from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers does not assume that that diploma is recognised by the Scottish universities, or the Scottish Department of Education—or the English Department of Education, for that matter.
According to Clause 2 (1,d) of the Industrial Training Bill, an industrial training board may award certificates of attainment of certain standards, but one has no right to assume that those certificates will be of an educational standard. But if the Board that we are setting up under these Regulations functions within industrial training boards, one could assume that the resulting certificate was a certificate of the attainment of an educational standard, because under Regulation 5 the Board is empowered to conduct examinations for the Certificate of Education, and to award that certificate.
Regulation 6 (2,b) provides that among the membership of the Board there shall be
Four members being persons of experience in industry or otherwise who have qualifications which in the opinion of the Secretary of State make them suitable for the appointment of the Board.
Why is the experience related merely to experience in industry? Why should it not include experience in business, commerce, trade, politics, or any one of many other spheres of activity? With the ever increasing specialisation in industry, a man who spends his life in it can develop a very narrow outlook. It is wrong to assume that a person with very high qualifications in a narrow range of activities in industry is more capable of the proper approach to a wide range of subjects than is some other person. We used to say that a specialist was a person who knew more and more about less and less, until he eventually ended up by knowing everything about nothing.
An inorganic chemist working in an industrial plant may be a first-class man at his job. He may have gained his M.Sc. at one of our universities. Nevertheless, I would not be prepared to agree that he would necessarily be the right sort of person to sit on an examining board such as the one which we are setting up. It has been demonstrated on many occasions that a person who is qualified in a specific field does not always make the best teacher. Looking back to my school days I remember that one man, who had the Literae Humaniores from Oxford, was one of our worst teachers. I am not certain that this idea of having
persons of experience in industry


is the right sort of approach to the formation of a board.
Not enough force is given in this country to the framework of examinations and the general standard of education of our children. Except in Scotland we have never paid sufficient attention to the needs of higher education. In many quarters there is still at attitude of mind which prohibits the provision of the great benefits to the community which would accrue from the creation of a higher status for education. If these Regulations, coupled with other Measures, will improve standards of education, I support them. As a result of the publicity given to the need for scientific education by the Leader of the Opposition—publicity which has inspired even this Government to move more rapidly during the last few months than at any time in the last few years—I hope that the general standard of education for the people of Scotland will be improved.

7.2 p.m.

Mr. Neil Carmichael: Hon. Members have described this as a momentous step in Scottish education, and I have no doubt that it is. I am, therefore, disappointed at the smallness of the attendance on the benches on this side of the House and I am positively shocked at the absence of hon. Members from the benches opposite. They prefer to opt out of Scottish education, and that may be one of the reasons for the disparity in the representation of Scottish constituencies.
In the modern world we are getting farther and farther away from the point at which people may make their voices heard. To have on the Board only six representatives from the large educational authorities in Scotland is to reduce the effective voice of the community through its elected representatives. There are to be 12 teachers on the board. Mainly because of the tremendous pressure of work which they experience I have found that teachers have little time to think about education other than from the point of view of their specific subjects. Many teachers complain that they are too hard worked to be able to contemplate a wider horizon, and anyone with a little experience of local authority work will appreciate the importance of

an intelligent lay member on an education committee who can set the pace for the professionals.
I was pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) expressed the hope that this Board would help inspectors to pay more
attention to the theoretical aspect of education. We are reaching a specialised stage and many children are not fulfilling their own ambitions so much as the ambitions of their parents. The creation of this new Board may enable the inspectorate to consider introducing some sort of functional guidance in the school curriculum so that when children have to make important decisions, they will receive more help than may be provided by the predilections of their parents, influenced as these may be by the calling or profession of the parents.
A number of hon. Members have referred to Regulation No. 5(2) and I find difficulty in ascribing a meaning to it. There is a tendency towards vagueness, and in so many ways the Secretary of State well be given carte blanche in the selection of members of the board. A point has been reached where a central examination board is necessary, and I welcome that. But I am disappointed because there is not a great deal more elected representation.
A person will be excluded from membership of the Board for failing to attend any meetings in 12 months. This may result in members who will be, as it were, "sleeping members". They may attend meetings whenever they feel inclined, and attend a sufficient number to enable them to stay as members of the Board. More attention should have been given to the selection of members, to the length of membership and to the choice of a chairman. I hope that the noble Lad) the Under-Secretary of State will note the comments which have been made and that the Regulations will prove of benefit to Scottish education.

7.10 p.m.

Mr. Peter Doig: In Committee on the Bill the noble Lady the Under-Secretary said that we were doing some thing unprecedented and taking power away from the Scottish Education Department and giving it to someone else to conduct examinations. I have always felt that the Secretary of


State and the Scottish Office had too much power already, and, therefore, my instinct was to support that proposal. However, when I see the way in which the power is to be given away, to whom it is to be given and how remotely the public will have contact with those who ultimately will have this power, I wonder if it is such a good thing to do.
The Secretary of State is directly or indirectly representing the public and is subject to their queries and questions, but it will be much more difficult for the public to do that in relation to the Board. When I examine the composition of the Board I feel that there is not nearly enough representation of local authorities. I should like to see more people on the Board who are accountable to the public. It does not seem enough to have six out of 33, especially when we consider that those six are to represent all the local authorities in Scotland. It is a very small proportion.
By the way in which the Regulation is worded, even those six may not all be publicly elected members. When county councils send representatives they will often send an official and he is not elected by the public. Often in the counties of cities we shall find the same situation. In the end there may not be even six, but perhaps only two, representing all the local authorities in Scotland. There should be a much greater allowance for representatives of local authorities. I do not think that six out of 33 is anything like enough.
On the question of the four members with experience in industry, I should like it to be specifically stated that there should be two representing the employers and two representing employees. Otherwise there may be four representing employers. Employees should have some say on the Board. The financial provisions for the Board are very confusing. There is no indication about who is to pay its expenses. I hope that the Government will have to pay and that this is not another way of pushing more Government expenditure on to the ratepayers.
I am puzzled by Regulation 5(2), which seems to suggest that with the approval of the Secretary of State the Board can perform functions for other bodies. I

wonder which other authorities these are. I should like to know if this can be done and, if so, what other bodies the noble Lady visualises will want to employ the Board. The question of for how long the Board is to be appointed is equally obscure. Regulation 8 says:
The Chairman and each of the other members of the Board shall hold office in accordance with the terms of his appointment".
I cannot find what the terms of appointment are unless it is that they are appointed for life and "perpetual succession". I do not know whether Regulation 4 means that the Board will have perpetual succession or that its members will have perpetual succession. That seems to be a wrong interpretation because Regulation 8(3) says:
A member of the Board shall be eligible for re-appointment on the expiry of his period of office".
Another strong thing is that there is no mention of how often or when the Board is to meet. The Regulations provide that if a member does not attend a meeting for a year he can no longer be a member of the Board, but there might be only one meeting of the Board in the year. A much more reasonable course would be to say that if a member misses three successive meetings he should no longer be a member of the Board. The Board is to have power to appoint committees and sub-committees. This seems to be delegating power away from the public. There should be some better provision made for that.
As a former member of an education committee of a local authority, I frequently had queries from people who simply did not know to whom they should go for information. If we are to have this sort of set-up there may be no one within a hundred miles who is a representative of the local authority and who knows anything about what is going on. How will the public know who has been appointed to the Board? It will be very difficult to get information. People will have to pester the office of the Secretary of State. It would be wrong for that to happen when other people would be willing to give the information.
There should be a method by which a report of what is going on could be published so that people could know who had been appointed and whom they


could approach in their own area to discover what was going on, someone to whom they could put legitimate questions without too much inconvenience. Much more ought to be done before we agree that this is a satisfactory Statutory Instrument.

7.18 p.m.

Mr. George Lawson: As the noble Lady the Under-Secretary of State will recall, the subject of setting up this Examination Board was one about which we were most concerned in Committee on the Bill. I do not think any of us would apologise for spending so much time in Committee on this matter. It was appreciated that the nature of the Board would play a powerful part in shaping education in Scotland in future. We had many ideas as to the form the Board might take and ideas as to the activities in which it might engage.
We are told by Regulation 6:
The Board shall consist of a Chairman and thirty-seven other members appointed by the Secretary of State".
He also will appoint the other members. He has to appoint those members from among persons nominated by various bodies.
The noble Lady spoke in Committee about eight representatives of the four universities in Scotland. If each university put forward two names, the eight university representatives would actually be appointed by those universities themselves, although nominally appointed by the Secretary of State. That operation could apply right down the line; the different organisations or bodies could put forward the specific number of persons allowed, with the result that it would be those bodies themselves that would be making the appointments. The Secretary of State should have a wide choice of names in each case and, using his judgment and that of his advisers, make the sort of appointments that might not, perhaps, be quite so representative of, say, the universities as some of the universities might have wanted, but more advantageous from a wider point of view.
Even if the Secretary of State thought that certain university people should be on the Board, he should be able to find some way of getting them on as part of the university group, and the

same thing should apply to most of the organisations. I am very well aware of this danger of putting forward only the actual number of people, and thereby not affording any real choice. It is very important that appointments should be made from a wide range of people.
The Board as described here will undoubtedly be very heavily weighted towards the academic side, and the noble Lady will recall the lengthy arguments we had about this in Committee. I think that what we now have is even more academically weighted than was originally described in the Committee, when it as argued that about four-fifths of those on the Board should represent the academic profession and the associations as representing the interests of education authorities. It was pointed out in the Committee, as it has again been pointed out just now by my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Doig), that the association representative could be an official and not an elected person.
The noble lady listed in Committee about 32 possible members of the Board, with the addition of two officials from the Scottish Department. I do not see those two officials in the present list. We have a Board made up of 38 members, including the chairman, but only four of them are to be from among these with experience in industry, and forth. Those four were originally mentioned in connection with a board of 32, but as we now have a Board of 38 that body is more weighted towards persons of academic experience than was first described. I should have thought that enough views were expressed in Committee—and those views were sympathetically received by the noble Lady—to indicate the feeling that rather than there being less representation of non-academic people, there should be more.
I have nothing against the person whose life is in the academic world, but I believe, is I know that many of my hon. Friends also believe, that there is very much more to education than the training one gets in university, or even in school. Advances in educational thought dc not necessarily come from those engaged in day-to-day educational work, and it is, perhaps, a good thing


that the educational world sometimes benefits from those drawn from outside, or those who come late to the profession.
It is more than ever important that we pay due attention to the person of non-academic experience—using that term in the widest sense—because of ideas now manifesting themselves so widely that education must embrace much more of life than has been the case in the past. We are thinking—and my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs (Mr. Malcolm MacPherson) made this point—in terms of institutions such as the City and Guilds. I think of a great extension of that kind of activity.
We still have three-quarters—or at least 70 per cent—of our youngsters leaving school at the first opportunity, and we have to think of the type of education that is likely to be of most benefit to them. Are we to get advice on this kind of thing, are we to get the shaping of our educational system, from men and women who are predominantly from the universities? As I say, I have nothing against those people, but they have developed certain ideas and views. Are we to get from them that advice on education, or on educational standards or on new forms of education that will benefit those 70 per cent. of youngsters who have no thought of going on to university?
By their very make-up, some people assimilate ideas much more readily through their hands and fingers than through their eyes and ears. Many youngsters assimilate much more, and very extensively, if asked to make something or do something than if they are asked to read something or listen to something. I should like to see that type of bias, if one may so term it, very much more developed but, looking at the composition of this Board, I cannot see the person having that type of experience or bias represented on it—or, if such people are represented at all, they are represented in a very minor way.
To what extent is it thought that this Board will extend its activities over the whole range of the educational system—not confining itself to those 40,000

youngsters who sit examinations and forgetting the 260,000 others who do not? The choice of the right people will ensure the exercise of the necessary powers. We must not choose those who have no very great desire to see other forms of education develop and who, in fact, rather condemn all other forms of education.
It has been said that only about 10 per cent. of our youngsters are capable of benefiting from higher education. This view has been expressed in high university circles. If those who hold this kind of view are to play a large part in the composition of the Board, then that body will not do a great deal to benefit the 70 per cent. of our young people about whom we are so concerned. The Newsom Report deals with more than half of the young people there, in England and Wales, but we have had no such report in Scotland. We have not had this matter examined, but I would say that the position in Scotland is no better in this respect than that in England and Wales as described in the Newsom Report.
I look forward to a great deal coming from this Board, but only if it is composed of the kind of people who have at heart the interests of the young people about whom we should be primarily concerned. It is sufficient almost to provide the facilities for the 10 per cent or even 20 per cent. who will make an effort to obtain higher education. Once the facilities are provided they will use them, but for the others we must do more than provide facilities. We must arouse their interest. The balance of their life, the type of people with whom they associate, the livelihoods which they will follow, are all against their reaching out for better education.
This is one of the reasons why we have argued so strongly in the past for the appointment on the Board of four members with experience in industry. I do not believe there should be two trade unionists and two employers. My concern when we argued this point was to draw in more people from beyond the educational circles and the professions. Professional people who are experts in their own field do not always see beyond it. Sometimes they tend to be contemptuous of people


who do not know as much of the detail as they know. They are often contemptuous of the ideas which other people put forward. Education goes far beyond the teaching of the alphabet and the working out of arithmetic marks. We should be concerned about these other things.
As for the universities as such, it is interesting to note that they are to be so heavily represented. There are to be, for example, eight members from the Universities of Scotland. This figure, I take it, is based on the four universities. Then there are the governing bodies of the central institutions, which I take it would cover such institutions as Heriot Watt and Stow College and the new University of Strathclyde. There are also the governing bodies of the colleges of education.
At present there is a great likelihood of these institutions becoming part and parcel of the university set-up and what is called higher education. This would mean that there would be 13 members from the universities and places of higher education. These institutions would be independent, autonomous bodies about whose internal activities the public would have no chance of obtaining information. We cannot even obtain information about how they spend their money or how they choose those who are to be accepted into the institutions.
It is made a special point of the excellence of our university system that the universities are above and beyond public control. The Robbins Report makes much of this point. I am not questioning that at the moment, but I draw attention to the fact that we have such a set-up and have organs of higher education which are not publicly accountable, although publicly financed, and yet these are the very bodies which determine education in the ordinary schools.
We have the example, for instance, of their saying that a certain subject no longer counts for university entrance. This decision reaches down to the schools where the subject is then treated as of no account. What happens in higher education affects the whole of education, and not merely secondary education and not merely the education given to the youngster who aspires to

the university. It also affects the education given to the one who does not so aspire. It is often the case that what he gets is a poor imitation of what the youngster who aspires to a university gets. All his reaches right down to the primary schools as well, because they are shaped more and more to meet the needs of the secondary schools.
We therefore have a position where a substantial proportion of the membership of the Board is made up of people drawn from institutions which are autonomous and independent, with curricula which are beyond our questioning, and yet they will decide what is to happen in the State education system. I am not at the moment questioning the independence of the universities. That is a big subject which we may have an opportunity to discuss some time, but I ask the noble Lady the Under-Secretary to look at the point again. Was it her intention that the universities should be so heavily represented on the Board?
I return to a point made earlier. I should like to see the Board made up of people of standing in Scotland, people of known activity and experience. The choice is not too wide but there are people whom we know to have earned reputations for themselves in given fields. I should like to see many more people of that kind becoming members of the Board. If this happens we might be able to overcome some of the problems I have in mind.
We have accepted the setting up of the Board. I wish it well, but I cannot but express doubts in looking at its composition that it will be far too heavily weighted along the lines of looking after the lad who is useful with a pen and who can pick up ideas and facts fairly quickly and hold them in his mind. I want to see the lad who is useful with a trowel or some other and perhaps finer instrument have a better chance than he has had in the past.

7.40 p.m.

Mr. John Rankin: I might carry a little further the interesting line of thought which my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell (Mr. Lawson) was taking. He was speaking of those whose brains are in their heads and of those whose brains are in their hands, but he forgot to mention those


whose brains are in their feet. I am not thinking of Rangers or of Celtic. Those aforementioned are three important sections of the Community, and I shall return to that line of thought a little later.
The Regulations are the outcome of the Bill which we debated some time ago. I draw attention, first, to the fact that the responsibilities of the Board are carefully defined. I assume that those who wrote these Regulations knew exactly the meaning of the words which they were using and used them with full knowledge not merely of the meaning which has been attached to them hitherto but of the meaning which is growing into some of them even as we are discussing them now.
We are told that the Board will deal with
matters relating to examinations for pupils receiving secondary education".
Anyone who uses the expression "secondary education" today cannot limit the word "secondary" just to the meaning which has for so long been attached to it, implying only scholastic achievement. For a good number of years, I was responsible for a school which required six schools to contain all the students enrolled, 1,300 of them, and a staff of 80 persons. The ages of the students ranged from 15 to 20, and this is leaving out those who were very much older. Those boys and girls—they were mostly boys—were in some cases continuing on to the Royal Technical College to take the Higher National Certificate or to take the B.Sc. They must be included now in the concept of secondary education. We must consider not only those who will enter university; some of my students actually went on to the institution which has now become a university.
In my view, the meaning of the word "secondary" is changing before our eyes and we must include within its reference today all to whom my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell was referring, with the addition of those I mentioned. This is the practice in other parts of the world. In the University of Shanghai, which I have visited, sport can be a degree subject. I have in mind football and all those kindred sports which attract great numbers of people

who are competent, more competent perhaps, with their hands and with their feet than they are for the type of education which we normally call secondary and who, in the scale of values now widely accepted, are rewarded at an infinitely higher level than many who attain university degrees.
This thought leads me to ask what exactly a university degree means. To me, it means only that the person who has achieved its merit has shown that he knows how to learn. He has not necessarily shown more. But there are universities, one of them the university of experience, in which people also acquire the ability to learn. We must keep this in mind when we think of using the word "secondary" and realise that in the world today there are universities which are putting these principles into practice.
There is no reason why this meaning of the word should not be imported into our consideration of awards other than university ones, and I am certain, or at least I hope, that the word "secondary" was put in the Regulations in full knowledge that its meaning is changing.
The Board is to conduct examinations and it may also provide services in that connection for any examining board or authority. It has a very wide function.
In Regulation No. 6, the Secretary of State defines the membership of the Board, which totals 37. This figure will have to be altered. We see in column 1 the expression "The universities of Scotland". The universities of Scotland now include the University of Strathclyde, which means five universities with eight members. Who will have the two and who will have the one? In due course, more quickly, perhaps, than many people think, we shall have another university. Will the expression "the universities of Scotland" then imply two representatives from each of six universities, making a total of 12 on the Board? Robbins goes so far as to say that we should have two new universities. He does not rule it out. If we are to add three new universities to the four referred to, and if two individuals are to come from each, there will have to be 14 members of the Board from the universities of Scotland, unless the representation is reduced to one from each.
Was this in the mind of the Secretary of State when these Regulations were framed? I wonder whether this is a deliberate act on his part to cut out the new university which Scotland has just achieved. If so, there will be trouble.

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Lady Tweedsmuir): indicated dissent.

Mr. Rankin: The noble Lady shakes her head, but, if she is not cutting out Strathclyde, it means that the representation will not be the same for each university.

Mr. William Ross: Does my hon. Friend recall that, when the Bill was in Committee, the noble Lady gave us the advantage of her thinking on this matter? She said then that there would be eight from the universities, and she said also that, of course, the Royal Technical College was a central institution, not a university. Obviously, she had not made any allowance within her eight for what is now the new university.

Mr. Rankin: My hon. Friend's interruption anticipated the next point that I was going to raise, that there are two nominees from central institutions. I am wondering if the Royal College was counted amongst the central institutions when these Regulations were being prepared, and again, if that is the case the noble Lady will find herself in trouble.
Generally, I would not quarrel with the composition of the Board. All the years when I was engaged in further education work, I regretted the fact that industry in the City of Glasgow, as represented particularly by its employers, did not show the care for further education which they ought to have done, because it was from that source that most of them were getting not only the journeymen and the craftsmen on Clyde-side but also those who staffed industry at higher levels.
Now we are bringing in
Four members being persons of experience in industry".
I think that that is in keeping with what I have already said, that there are many ways of learning, not only at university level but at other levels, and that in a body of this nature we have to recognise those different sources of learning and give them equality of treatment. If we have

eight from the academic side, then we ought to have eight from the industrial side. I am not quarrelling with eight from the universities, but I feel that the other side ought to be recognised in parity with the universities.
But, generally, I think that all the interests that I should like to see brought in are represented here—the central institutions, the colleges of education, the directors of education, and the teachers. These are the people whom we want to bind more closely together in forming this corporate body, which will not only conduct the examinations, but prepare the papers, and generally bring into closer contact the school and the university. At the same time I should like to see industry bound just as closely as the university will be.
In Regulation 6(2,b) there is rather an unusual use of words:
Four members being persons of experience in industry or otherwise who have qualifications which in the opinion of the Secretary of State make them suitable for appointment to the Board.
I do not Know about the word "otherwise". It seems to me redundant. It would have been equally clear if it had just said "or who have qualifications which in the opinion of the Secretary of State are considered suitable for appointment to the Board". When he uses that expression, he is giving himself a power which, I hope, he will employ wisely and not use to reduce industrial representation.
Regulation No. 8 which caught my attention—it has been mentioned already—deals with the terms of the appointment of the chairman and each member of the Board. Regulation No. 8(3) tells us that
A member of the Board shall be eligible for re-appointment on the expiry of his period of office".
But his period of office is not defined, and as the Regulations make direct reference to this period of office, I feel that it should be stated in Regulation No. 8(1) that the terms of his appointment are for some period that has to close at some point in time.
Another Regulation that caught my attention was that dealing with committees. It stems that we are to create a plentitude of committees, sub-committees and subject panels. It is not for me


at this stage to dispute their necessity. They may all be necessary and, if so, one can make no valid objection to the proposal to create them. What I do not like about the proposal is that the sub-committees and the subject panels under Regulation No. 9(2) may consist wholly of persons who are not members of the Board. It we are to have a Board which will have sub-committees and subject panels, and the sub-committees, in some cases, and the subject panels have no connection whatever with the Board that appoints them, I feel that we may possibly be heading for a situation that might become somewhat chaotic.
There is no guarantee as to attendance or anything like that. I noted that the individuals are appointed for an indefinite period. But they can be deprived of office for a number of reasons, one of which is failure to attend a meeting for twelve months. It seems to me that that is absurd. A person who has been appointed to a responsible post of this type, even if it is a sub-committee, when he is not a member of the Board or a subject panel is supposed to be doing an important job. Yet he can be absent from it for 12 months before it is concluded that he no longer wishes to participate in the work of the Board. The disqualification period could, without any injustice or harm being done to the member of the Board, be reduced from 12 to 6 months. Perhaps it would do a great deal of good to the Board. If it is an important body, those appointed to it should ensure that they attend to the work they have undertaken.
I wish the Board and its sub-committees well, because they will have a very big job to do. If it brings the schools, whether they are schools carrying on secondary education or schools carrying on further education, into closer contact with the academic and industrial side of life—because the children in them must enter one or the other—or the recreational side of life, it will have done a good job. Like myself, I am sure that all my hon. Friends hope that it does that job well and thoroughly.

8.1 p.m.

Mr. William Ross: I well remember that when we were discussing the Bill before it became an

Act I tried to persuade the hon. Lady the Under-Secretary of State that the Regulations covered by Clause 1 were so important a matter that they should be dealt with by the affirmative Resolution procedure, which would have meant that the Government whether they liked it or not, would have had to bring them before the House and receive the consent of Parliament. My object was to ensure that we had ample time to discuss the Regulations. I do not think the noble Lady thought when she resisted that suggestion that when the Regulations eventually came before us we would have far more time for discussion than the Government would probably have been prepared to allow.
I confess to being more than a little disappointed. We spent a tremendous amount of time in Committee in discussing what we thought and hoped would be in these Regulations. We returned to the subject on Report and Third Reading. However, I never dreamt that when we eventually got the Regulations we should have so little information. Some of these things are just a repetition of what was stated would be in the Regulations, and the Government have not gone very far in letting us know exactly how matters are proceeding. We certainly cannot judge from the Regulations how things will be conducted. Therefore, my first general comment about the Regulations is that they still leave us guessing.
When we discussed the matter in principle, we thought that the Regulations would tell us everything. We unburdened ourselves for three mornings in Committee. Some of my hon. Friends referred to the fact that the new theme song which we should sing in Scotland was, "Where have all the Tories gone?". During these three mornings—two and half hours of slopping work each morning—the Scottish Unionists, four of them, managed to fill four columns of the OFFICIAL REPORT. That was their contribution, and quite a bit of it was achieved by way of interjection. They are not interested in Scottish education.
There is no doubt that this is the most important thing which has happened in Scottish education for a long time. As one of my hon. Friends rightly said, it is a historic landmark. Even


the establishing of the Board was to be done by Regulation. However, we managed to get the Government to do something definite and they established it. But we are providing in the Regulations for an independent examinations body covering all the examinations to which our children in secondary schools will be submitted. This is a hurdle which they will have to surmount in order eventually to achieve entrance to a university. However, it affords an opportunity of breaking away from the strict straitjacket which the power of the universities has placed on Scottish secondary education, because the curriculum of the senior secondary schools has been determined by the demands made by the universities. In addition, whether he liked it or not, what everybody else in the senior secondary school got, even though he was not going to university, was equally well determined.
Therefore, although we have had a wonderful system of examination in Scotland for people destined for university, it does not mean that we have had a wonderful system of education, because it has prevented the broadening of the curriculum. It has affected senior secondary education, but it has affected junior secondary education as well, because many people tended to deny that the experimental possibilities of the junior secondary school were creating a pale shadow of the senior secondary school.
This is the measure of the importance of the work which this new incorporated Examination Board will do. I had hoped that we should be enlightened about the purposes of which we spoke at that time and to which my hon. Friends referred again tonight, but, reading the Regulations, I get as little enlightenment as I got then.
The Scottish Office has not been very fortunate with its Regulations this season, shall I say. The last Scottish Regulations which we had were the building Regulations when the tawse was taken to the Government. They were lucky to have the Regulations passed through this House because they had broken all the rules. I see that this Statutory Instrument is a corrected reprint. I am surprised that the Government have not been told to go and correct it again, because one of the obligations laid on any Secretary of State or Minister of

State concerning Statutory Instruments under the negative Resolution procedure is that he should indicate that he has sought representations and consulted the people entitled to be consulted in drawing up the Regulations.
I do not see any indication on reading this Statutory Instrument that the Ministers have consulted anybody. It just starts straight away:
In exercise of the powers … I hereby make the following regulations".
This is Michael himself.

Mr. Bence: Where is he?

Mr. Ross: Do not ask me. Like my hon. Friends, I should like to know who was consulted. It would have been worth while—in fact, essential—from the viewpoint of some of the responsibilities, duties and functions placed upon the Board that at least someone should have been consulted.
We will pass over the incorporation and the rights and privileges, and even the common seal, and come to Regulation 5(2), which states:
Subject lo the approval of the Secretary of State, the Board may enter into arrangements to perform functions or provide services on behalf of any other examining body or authority.
Where does the Board get its authority for that? Is it from Section 1 of the Act, subsection (1,b) or (1,c):
such other purposes relating to examinations as may be specified in regulations under this section"?
I assure the Under-Secretary that we were not told anything about this during the passing of the Bill. Is this something that the Government have suddenly thought up? I do not entirely object to it. If this body is to be the expert examinations body for secondary schools, there is no reason why, with the development of education, prenursing courses and the rest, it should not be asked to conduct examinations or give advice in their conduct to bodies outside the education authorities. I do not know whether that is the idea, but since this was so important a matter as to be given a whole provision to itself, I am surprised that the hon. Lady did not raise it when we discussed the matter nearly a year ago. I shall be grateful to know what is in the hon.


Lady's mind, because I expect Regulations to be specific and not to throw new vaguenesses and questions at us.
Regulation 6 is entitled "Membership". My hon. Friends were quite right to ask about this. The universities of Scotland are to have eight members on the Board. That was the figure that the hon. Lady told us when we had one university fewer than we have now. Was this number drawn up before somebody in the Scottish Office realised that there was a University of Strathclyde? Probably, with the increased number of universities, we might have increased representation, or is there to be a bit of dodging between those who represent the governing bodies of central institutions, into which category at one time that body came?
The last in the categories are
Teachers' associations recognised as representing the interests of teachers …
This is a tough one for the hon. Lady. Whom did she consult?

Mr. E. G. Willis: The Scottish schoolmasters?

Mr. Ross: Did the hon. Lady consult the Scottish Schoolmasters' Association? Did she consult the Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association or the E.I.S.? Did she consult one, two or all of them, and what other bodies, concerning the appointment of the 12 members to the Board? We are left with many questions.
Four members are to be appointed directly by the Secretary of State.
being persons of experience in industry or otherwise".
We tried nobly to have those words taken out during the passage of the Bill, but the hon. Lady resisted. There is scope here for considerably widening the Board. There is no doubt that it must be mainly academic, because it deals with a technical and important subject, but a considerable levelling up is needed to the maximum of other people.
What was the stipulation laid down under which the noble Lady had to make her Regulations? Not less than four-fifths were to be from the categories of universities, associations, governing bodies and the rest. I do not think that four members will be quite enough for what I consider should be their duties,

because as we go on to read the provisions concerning committees—consisting not only of members of the Board, but others, sub-committees, panels and the rest—we realise that the Board, which will deal with general policy, will meet only four times a year at most. I hope that it will be critical of whether examinations in certain areas of education are worth while.
On the Board, we want people who are critical and not simply people who are thrilled with the idea that examinations are wonderful. There are many who believe that the examinations are only a painful necessity because we are short of places and that we do not necessarily get the right people or that it is desirable to select people by examination for universities, or, indeed, for many other jobs. This method is a fairly blunt instrument, and I say this as a teacher. It is a hopeless instrument for the selection of the right people for either university places or places in secondary schools at the 11-plus or the 12-plus division, as it is in Scotland. I hope, therefore, that we will have people who are critical.
There are to be only four members in the category of paragraph (b). I hoped that we would get more. We juggled with the fractions before, but we do not want these people all in the same definite character of
experience in industry or otherwise".
That is a silly phrase and it was silly in the Bill.
I should like to ask also about the chairman of the Board. Surely, this is one thing that the Government will have decided. The Regulations are not simply the fruits of a Bill that WAR passed about a year ago. In 1961 the Government were considering the Board and who would serve upon it. They have, therefore, had over two years to think about this. Surely, by this time, they can tell us who the chairman will be. We will probably not sleep any easier for the knowledge, but at least that much should come out.
What is the term of the appointment? The chairman and each of the other members of the Board
shall hold office in accordance with the terms of his appointment".
As two of my hon. Friends have said, this is a strange piece of information to


be given under a paragraph entitled "Term of office". Is the chairman to decide this for himself? Will the Board decide it or will the Secretary of State decide? If the Secretary of State decides it, why does he not take the House into his confidence'? The purpose of the Regulations was that he should not have to hurry to make up his mind earlier. He has had a year to think of it. He has plenty of experience of appointing all sorts of other bodies. Surely, we can be told for how long the chairman and other members will be appointed.
My hon. Friends have asked questions about committees, but I will not go into that. The people who do the actual work will be the sub-committees and the subject panels. I agree with one of my hon. Friends who referred to the fact that many teachers had not gone in for the task of setting or correcting examination papers because there was low payment. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why teachers' salaries are kept down, so that teachers will be attracted to correct examination papers on the side.
It will be necessary to co-opt people who will deal with the actual subjects, the questions, and lay out the papers, and those who will conduct them. I know it is difficult, but I would think that there must be people with reliable understanding of uniformity of standards throughout the country—because this will be a nation-wide examination. And if it is, of course it is going to deny elementary justice to many children. So it is a matter which requires very considerable knowledge, care and experience, and I hope that the Board will be advised in the first instance, as I am sure it will, by the Education Department, which has been doing a good job over many years.
Another point is that mistakes can be made. Circumstances can arise in which a child does not do its best on examination day. There are about 50,000 children over the age of 15 in our schools who will be affected—whose whole future may be affected—by this Board. That is the importance of it. That is why I am appalled by this Tory absence here tonight. We have not only to pick the right people for setting the examinations and correcting the

papers, but, I would have thought, we should have seen in the Regulations some procedure for appeals. I think that in 1962 there were about 41,800 pupils who presented themselves for examination covering about 250,000 subjects. There were 2,500 appeals. I think that the number of appeals upheld was just over 800—that is, one in three—so it is important that what has happened in the S.E.D. in relation to the conduct of the examinations be continued here.
It is so important that I thought it would have been worthy of inclusion in the Regulations. But it is not there. The Regulations are just about as vague as the Bill was. This offers no comfort to my hon. Friends who are interested in the link-up of secondary and further education and who want to see a broadening of the curriculum. That, of course, is dependent on the conduct of the Board. I do not know whether we shall get any satisfaction from the hon. Lady or not. I have my doubts about it.
I come to the financial arrangements. I expected that my hon. Friend the Members for Dundee, West (Mr. Doig) would raise this. I want to break the said news to him—the Government are paying nothing. At present it costs the Education Department £160,000 a year to conduct the examinations. The job has got too big for it. It has so many other jobs to do; it wants to concentrate on what it thinks is its job of organising a specialised corporate body dealing with examinations. So the local authorities will pay for it after the first year, £200,000 a year. But do not worry, the Government are going to get advice from this body; so the Government are going to pay for the advice at £5,000 a year. So the ratepayers will pay more, the Government will pay less, after the first year.
Like my hon. Friends I would like to know more about this six months' overdraft and borrowing money. That is Regulation 11(3). Remember, as soon as that happens the Secretary of State will ring up all the local authorities saying, "Now's the day, and now's the hour.' Send more money to the Examination Board." Because this was the only "shall" in the whole Bill. Everything else was left to Regulations, but when it came to payment the Bill


said the local authorities "shall" pay—by such a time and such sums as the Secretary of State may determine, I think after consultation, or something like that. It means that whenever they get into an overdraft position the responsibility will be on the Secretary of State to tell the local authorities to pay the Board some more money.

Mr. Bence: It will be in liquidation by then.

Mr. Ross: All these matters are important. That is why I certainly am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) took the opportunity to give us a chance here to impress upon the Government that we feel strongly about this. Probably the most important thing in the Regulations is something which we persuaded the Government, against their will, to accept, and that is that there shall be an annual report to this House. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) about this, and, to my mind, that annual report to the House may well determine how we in the House shall be able to watch progress, to ask Questions and try to persuade the Secretary of State to do something about the work of the Board.
I want to impress this upon the hon. Lady. I know that she was not at a Scottish school. Like the rest of the Scottish Tories, she has been in a Scottish school only by invitation.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: And at election times.

Mr. Ross: Yes, and at election times.

Mr. Willis: If it is raining.

Mr. Ross: If it rains. And there will be fewer of them here after the next election.
But this is a matter of vital importance for Scottish children, Scottish parents, the Scottish nation. We have had a tendency in the past to allow our higher education to be cabined by the wishes of the universities. I hope that from the contracts we may now get between teachers and representatives of the universities and the training colleges and the Scottish Education Department, with its assessors, and the rest, we shall get a proper appreciation of the real needs

of higher education at the present time, and that examinations will be a help rather than a hindrance, and will, indeed, be an indication of the range of talents we have in Scotland rather than the selection of talents within Scotland. If we get away from the idea that the whole purpose of examinations is selection for a limited number of places, then the setting up of this Board, despite the inadequacy of the information we have here about it, may well be, as my hon. Friends have said, an historic event in the story of Scottish education.

8.27 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Lady Tweedsmuir): I should like first to congratulate hon. Members opposite who had the skill to put down a Prayer on a day when they perceived business would stop rather early. We have, therefore, been able to have a really very interesting debate.
I should like to say at the start to the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) and the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan), who questioned the manner in which these Regulations were made during the Christmas Recess, that I am sure they appreciate how very important it was to try to get this Board established as soon as we possibly could; and of course the educational associations had to be consulted; and it was important to nominate its members, and this could not be done until the Regulations were made. Although they were laid on 3rd January and came into operation on 10th January, they nevertheless—and this is the reason for the debate—still had to have their 40 sitting days. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) specifically asked who was consulted about this. The detailed proposals for the Regulations were sent in May, 1963 to the education bodies which were to be represented on this Board, namely the universities, the Scottish Universities Entrance Board, the Association of County Councils, the Scottish Counties of Cities Association, the Association of Directors of Education, the governing bodies of central institutions, the governing bodies of colleges of education, the E.I.S., the S.S.T.A., the Headmasters Association and the Scottish branch of the Headmistresses' Association.
In the light of their comments, draft regulations were issued in September and the Regulations were, therefore, made in final form in December. They differ from the draft Regulations only in that the draft provided for nine members from the universities and the S.U.E.B. jointly, and, at the request of the universities and the S.U.E.B., the Regulations provide for eight members from the universities, including Strathclyde, and one from the S.U.E.B.

Mr. Malcolm MacPherson: Why did the hon. Lady not consult the Association of University Teachers?

Lady Tweedsmuir: I understand they have a very large membership within the E.I.S. [Interruption.] No interruptions, please, because I am now getting to the point which was the source of questions asked by hon. Members.
The hon. Member for Kilmarnock asked about Regulation 5. I will not deal with sub-paragraphs (a) and (b) because the functions are perfectly clear to everybody. Questions were asked about Regulation 5(2). I can remember clearly dealing with this point in Committee. The function of the Board must be to get down to undertaking its own examinations. It will take a lot of time and work to get these under way. After that, once the work is sensibly established, there will be spare examination capacity at certain periods of the year and, therefore, it might well be possible for the Board to undertake examinations for professional bodies or for outside bodies conducting examinations in Scotland, or—and I remember mentioning this matter specifically in Committee—it might advise on or devise examinations for developing countries. That is why this provision is included, although naturally it is not expected that the Board will undertake this sort of task at the beginning.
The Regulation which interests every hon. Member more than any other is Regulation 6 concerning constitution and membership. The hon. Members for Dundee, East, for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs (Mr. Malcolm MacPherson) and for Kilmarnock asked whether it was possible tonight to name the Chairman. That I shall do. First of all, I should say that the chairman and four members will be appointed directly by the Secretary of State. There will also be

appointed by the Secretary of State the 33 members from among those nominated by the bodies listed here. The chairman is Sir David Anderson, the former principal of the Royal College of Science and Technology and a member of the Robbins Committee. Here I should like to express our great gratitude to him for feeling able to undertake this task. I believe—and I hope the House will agree—that he will be a very distinguished chairman of this Board.

Mr. Willis: How old is he?

Lady Tweedsmuir: He is a former Principal—

Mr. Willis: He is retired then?

Lady Tweedsmuir: I said that he is a former Principal. He is retired. But the fact that he is a former principal and is retired does not mean that he is without great experience and a person who I am certain will have a great contribution to make to this Board.
Four other direct Secretary of State appointees will be selected from interests including both sides of industry which are not otherwise represented on the Board. They might also include representatives of commerce or professional bodies not already represented on the Board, but a final decision on these four Secretary of State members cannot be taken until the other members of the Board have been finally selected.
Early in January, therefore, the bodies listed in Regulation 6 were asked to submit names from among whom the Secretary of State would select members of the Board. [Interruption.] I thought that hon. Members were very interested in the question of membership and how it was to be construed. I would not like them to miss anything, so I will repeat what I have just begun.

Mr. Ross: My hon. Friends were expressing a certain amount of surprise, following the hon. Lady's announcement of the name of the chairman of the Board, since she said during the Committee stage of the Act that retired teachers ought not to be on the Board.

Lady Tweedsmuir: I cannot remember everything I said in Committee and a great deal has happened since. I repeat that early in January all the bodies listed in Regulation 6 were asked to submit


names from among whom the Secretary of State would select members of the Board. Generally speaking, they were asked for up to twice as many nominees as they would have representatives on the Board, with the exception of the universities.
The central institutions and the colleges of education were asked to agree that their representatives should be chosen from among their principals. Most of the bodies have now replied and when the remainder reply my right hon. Friend will be in a position to make his selection from the names put forward and we hope that the Board can be constituted and will meet for the first time in April.

Mr. G. M. Thomson: On what principle were the universities not asked to conform to the practice of nominating twice as many names as their seats on the Board?

Lady Tweedsmuir: There are to be eight members for the universities—I do not count the Entrance Board. They will represent five universities—in time, I hope, six universities. The seats will be allocated on both a geographical and a faculty basis. Obviously one university will have to have less than the others and they will take turns for this.

Mr. Bruce Millan: Why should the principle be different for the universities? There seems to be no valid reason.

Lady Tweedsmuir: The reason was that it was agreed with the university principals that they would together submit eight names giving reasonable coverage, both geographically and of faculties, and that this would be done by agreement between them, recognising that they would not get two representatives each.

Mr. Lawson: But this is the very thing we are objecting to. The universities are demanding and receiving for themselves virtually complete independence and now this independence is to be extended into the ordinary State education because they will be able to appoint the people who will represent them on the Board. That is an absurd position. If the Secretary of State is to appoint he

must have a selection and the same principle should apply to the universities as to the others. I hope that the hon. Lady will take this back and think again.

Lady Tweedsmuir: The Secretary of State will have a selection because, as I have said, the names that will be submitted to him will be listed to give proper representation to the faculties and also adequate geographical coverage. My right hon. Friend will have a selection to choose from.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Lady Tweedsmuir: I shall not give way again. It is clear that the Board will be a highly expert and experienced body covering a wide range of interests in education. It is expected that the county and city nominees will also include directors of education. The colleges of education and central institutions which have so far replied have all stated that they would wish their representation to be from college principals. I agree that the membership of the Board will be heavily weighted on the side of professional educationists, but it will also include non-educational representation from local authorities to ensure that local authority financial interests are looked after.
I well remember that we spent a large part of our debate in Committee on the subject of the composition of the Board. The difference between what I indicated at that time, which was roughly about 32 members, and what we have now, which is about 38 members, is that we have increased the local authority representation by four and that of the teachers' associations by two, making for these two bodies six and 12 members respectively. Today we have had the same debate between those who feel that, as this is a body designed to undertake these examinations, it should be weighted educationally, and those who feel that the representation should be broader.
The hon. Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Doig) said that he would like more representatives from the local authority associations. We have increased them by four and I think that that is about the right proportion. For those who are concerned that there is not enough representation from the teachers, we


have increased that number by two. As soon as the Secretary of State has decided the membership, the individuals concerned will be notified to serve on the Board, on which they will be regarded as individual appointments by the Secretary of State and not delegates from their respective associations. The Board will then be formally constituted and a public announcement made to this effect.
Various hon. Members have asked about the term of office. This has not yet been finally decided, but I indicated in Committee, and we are still of the same opinion, that it is expected that the terms of office will normally be three years in the first instance, while that of the chairman will be four years. The Regulations provide for re-appointment, but the Secretary of State's intention is that there should be a fairly regular turnover of Board members so that experience of the Board's work will be widely dispersed in Scottish educational circles and the Board itself will always be drawing on fresh educational experience. For instance, it is probable that the representation from the colleges of education and the central institutions will go in turn to the principals of at least the larger establishments. In order to avoid a break in membership, such as would happen if all the first members were appointed for three years, some of them will probably be appointed for the first time for four years.
The next Regulation in which many hon. Members have naturally been interested has been Regulation 9. The part which interested hon. Members most was that concerned with the other committees. The Board will obviously want to appoint for instance, a general purposes committee and an examination committee and may also wish to appoint special committees from time to time to deal with domestic affairs, such as staff and accommodation, or particular matters on which the Secretary of State asks for advice. It may wish to co-opt to those advisory or examination committees individuals with special knowledge or experience.
I now turn to the sub-committees and the subject panels. The Regulations do not spell out everything in detail, because it is for the Board, which is responsible, to decide how it is to work,

but we hope that responsibility for overseeing the examination arrangements generally will be delegated to an examination committee, but that for each subject or group of subjects a sub-committee or subject panel will be responsible. The subject panels, of which there may obviously be quite a number, perhaps about 20, would consist of teachers and others with knowledge and experience of these subjects. Each subcommittee or panel would normally include a member or members of the Board interested in the subject concerned, but the majority of the panel would probably be specialists—teachers, or lecturers with the right qualifications—co-opted to the panel only and not members either of the Examination Committee or of the Board itself.
It may happen from time to time that the Board does not include a member with knowledge of, or interests in, a particular subject, and it may not wish to appoint to the panel concerned a member without relevant knowledge. That is why the Regulations enable the Board to appoint sub-committees or subject panels which do not include Board members. It has been done for that specific reason. Of course, it is entirely for the Board itself to decide whether, ant in what circumstances, to make use of this provision.
The panels will be responsible for the nomination of examiners, the drafting of question papers, and other matters concerned with examinations in their respective subjects. They will consider comments on question papers, they will advise on changes in syllabuses, and they will be concerned with the development generally of their particular subjects.
A number of hon. Members asked about the financial arrangements. It is difficult to assess exactly the present cost of the examination because it is shared among several Departments—the S.E.D., the Stationery Office, the Ministry of Public Building and Works—and part of it is concealed in S.E.D. salaries, but it is about £160,000. The best estimate that we can make of the Board's expenditure is that it will be about £200,000 in the first year it conducts the examination. There will therefore be an increase in cost to public funds of about £40,000 in the first year.
The whole of the Board's expenditure up to May, 1965—which is, of course, the beginning of the local authority financial year 1965–66—will be met by the Exchequer through grants from the S.E.D. and none of this cost will fall on the rates. After that the Department will continue to make a small grant to the Board not exceeding £5,000 a year in respect of its advisory services, but the remainder of the Board's expenditure will be met by contributions from local authorities, probably in proportion to their school population, but this has yet to be settled.
But that does not mean what I think the hon. Member for Kilmarnock thought that it meant, or said that it would mean. It does not mean that local authority expenditure will be increased in 1965–66 because of their commitments to the Board, since the total amount of general grant to be distributed in 1965–66 will be increased by a sum equal to the estimated expenditure of the Board in that year. In other words, the authorities' contributions will be repaid 100 per cent. in Exchequer grant. In subsequent years the Exchequer will continue to pay the authorities a sum equal to the Board's expenditure in its first year, and any further increase will be met by the authorities and will be recognised expenditure for general grant in the usual way.
The hon. Member for Maryhill, and the hon. Member for Kilmarnock, were particularly interested in the provision under regulation 11(3) concerning overdrafts. The Board will get contributions from local education authorities. These payments may not exactly coincide with the Board's outgoings, and the Board therefore may be in the red for short periods. That is the reason for the provision relating to the overdraft.
The hon. Member for Maryhill, and the hon. Member for Dundee, East asked me about the employment of officials, and exactly how many were in the present Education Department. At present 17 office staff are employed full-time on examination work. In addition, up to 100 temporary staff are taken on for varying periods between January and October. On the professional side, 50

inspectors—nearly half the total of our inspectorate—are employed part-time on the preparation of syllabuses, question papers, and so on, In addition, about 2,000 examiners are employed in marking, of whom about 80 per cent. are practising teachers, the remainder being lecturers and other suitably qualified people.
The Board will appoint its own staff, which will doubtless include experienced educationists in senior posts, but the precise form of its staff structure will be for the Board. It will no doubt engage other professional staff to draft question papers. One of the great points about it will be that it will in time release the 50 inspectors to do the work which the Department originally wanted them to do. The inspectors will naturally do everything they can to help in the first months of the new venture, but as the Board gets into its stride we hope that the inspectors will be free to carry out their very important duties.
The hon. Member for Maryhill asked whether the Board will decide to introduce an A level examination. The answer is, "No". The Secretary of State will decide whether or not to do this, but he will obviously seek the Board's advice, because that is one of its functions.
The Board promises great things for Scottish education. I believe that by bringing together all those who are represented on the Board, and those who will be working closely with them on the subject panels we shall in fact be bringing together all those who are interested in education in Scotland, and in the type of examinations to be set and the curricula which should prepare our children for those examinations.
Therefore, in commending these Regulations to the House, I would point out that I very much agree with the hon. Member for Dundee, East that they may well represent a very important mark in Scottish education.

9.3 p.m.

Mr. E. G. Willis: I had no intention of intervening in the debate, but I have been prompted to do so by the hon. Lady's remarks about the membership of the Board, especially in reference to the universities. She was


rather cagey on this point. I still fail to see why universities should be treated differently from other interested bodies in the matter of putting forward names to the Secretary of State. I cannot see why other bodies are required to put forward twice the number of names required, in order that the Secretary of State shall make a selection for membership of the Board, while universities simply have to put forward the names of people to go straight on to the Board.
The hon. Lady said that we should have a fair representation, geographically, in accordance with departments, and so on, but she did not answer my question. I should like to know why the universities forward the names of eight people, who then go straight on to the Board. I was interested in this point because she was later at pains to point out that having once been appointed to the Board by the Secretary of State members will not be delegates from the bodies they represent, but will be responsible to the right hon. Gentleman. We accept that. It is what we thought that they should be, but the procedure adopted for the universities makes them representative of the universities, and I cannot understand why the universities should be placed in this privileged position. There is nothing in the Regulations to prevent the Minister from putting the universities on the same footing as other educational organisations and institutions.
We want more than eight nominations from the universities. If necessary, we should have 16 or 12, but more than eight. We want the Secretary of State to select the membership of the board and not the universities. I do not know how they are responsible to us. The procedure is wrong and I protest vigorously at the treatment given to universities. Why should they be treated differently from colleges of education or central institutions? Why should they be treated more favourably with regard to numbers? Parts of the debate which I have heard seemed to indicate that we wanted to get away from the educational curriculum of the universities. But the composition of the board would prevent that from happening.
What is to happen in respect of the members referred to in Regulation No. 6(2,b). The number there ought to be

larger, and if what is desired by my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell (Mr. Lawson) is to be brought about, it can be done only in that way. In spite of the enormous university expansion which is expected in the next few years, most children will go into industry without having attended a university or similar institution, and so the point made by my hon. Friend was a sound one. We need to forge new links in this sphere and break away from the traditional canalisation of education along the lines adopted in the past.
I do not pretend to be an expert on these matters. Unlike Scottish Members on the benches opposite I happen to have been educated in England—but then I am an Englishman. From my experience it seems to me that the weighting is in the wrong direction. I was surprised that the hon. Lady did not consult the Scottish Schoolmasters' Association. It seems to me a case of pique because the association won its case against the Secretary of State.
Now the right hon. Gentleman seems to be getting his own back. Is not this childish? How childish can this Government get? What Government would stoop to this sort of pettiness which one would expect from—well, certain types of people. This is quite disgusting. No Government worth their salt would stoop to this kind of pettiness because they were displeased at having been taken to court and defeated. What a Government! No wonder they are making no impression on the electorate. If the electorate knew that they were guilty of this sort of thing—dear, dear! The noble Lady should have seen to it that her Government did better than this.
I am not trying to be in any way derogatory to the chairman of the Board. I have no doubt that he is a most distinguished man and one who has given good service, but I wonder if it is right to appoint a retired person to this position. We are looking to the future. Society is changing and our educational system is changing. Children in our society want to move in line with these changes. The chairman needs to be someone who is forward-looking and who believes in the future. People who retire do not think like this. They are apt to think in terms of the past and how well they did and how unfortunate


it is if a young person wants to change those things.
I wonder if we should not find someone with an attitude of mind more in tune with what younger people are thinking and trying to create. Appointing retired people to these positions happens too frequently. I have no intention of being disrespectful to the person concerned, but we ought to think in rather different terms. Perhaps it is expecting too much of a Tory Government to think in such terms, but I am sure that the people would like to see Parliament acting in this manner.
If we carry this Prayer tonight, what happens to the chairman of the Board? What happens to the Board? These Regulations came into operation on 10th January. What happens if we decide that they should not have come into operation then? Are we to say to the chairman of the Board and all those who have been consulted, "We are sorry, but we shall have to introduce a new Statutory Instrument"? Of course, by that time there will be a General Election.
The Government have acted quite shockingly about this matter and with their customary ineptitude. They print a Statutory Instrument and have to reprint it. They bring it in on the same day and as Parliament is not sitting that day they decide that it will come into operation on another day, and they find that Parliament is not sitting on that day. Why are the Government afraid of the House of Commons? Why are they afraid of letting their activities obtain a little limelight? Why do they always try to hide away and do things by backstairs methods? It is shocking the way they introduce these things and keep their fingers crossed in the hope that the Opposition will not notice.
Surely by this time the Government should have learned that if there is one way of making sure there will be a debate in the House of Commons it is to act in this way. With my hon. Friends the Members for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross), for Motherwell, for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan), for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan), and others around me, surely the Government do not think that they can get away with something like

this. To think that would be to show optimism of a remarkable degree—the same kind of optimism that makes them think they may still win the next General Election.
I am disappointed by the noble Lady's reply, particularly about membership. I ask her quite seriously to consider the position of the universities, because the way is still open for the Government to tell the universities that what is wanted are not eight nominees, but a dozen, or even 16.

9.6 p.m.

Mr. Bruce Millan: The Regulations say that the members of this Board shall be appointed by the Secretary of State, but in connection with the university representation the noble Lady simply says that these members will be appointed by the universities. I do not see why that should apply to the universities when it does not apply to the other representatives. The universities are not even contributing, as the local authorities are, to the financing of the Board. I do not want to make any attack on the Scottish universities, because that does not arise on this point, but I deplore the rather delicate way in which the Government seem always to handle universities, even in circumstances like this where the Government ostensibly take full power unto themselves.
I do not see why we should be so excessively careful not to offend the universities in any of our dealings with them. I cannot understand why Governments continually adopt this attitude when, in one way or another, through public funds we provide for the vast majority of university expenditure. Governments not only say that we must not in any way interfere with the academic freedom of the universities, but also seem to say that we must not be seen to be interfering in any way at all with the universities' complete independence. In such a case as this, that is quite absurd.
As has been said, the noble Lady was at pains to point out that the various representatives on the Board will not be delegates from their original constituent bodies but will be independent appointees of the Secretary of State. I should have thought it inimical to that


principle to allow universities to appoint their own nominees. I see no reason for that, and I imagine that there is no reason wily the Secretary of State cannot change his mind and ask the universities to give him a list from which he can choose.
Obviously, one wants to consult the universities, just as one has consulted the other representative bodies, and one wants to ask them to take account of geographical location and the different faculty interests, but there should be some discretion left to the Secretary of State after all that has been done. I am extremely disappointed that the Secretary of State should have gone about it in the way described. It seems a very inauspicious start to the relationship between the Board and the universities, and it is a matter that gives a number of us a great deal of concern.
I have no very strong views about the actual numbers on the Board—that is a matter for judgrnent—but the universities are certainly not under-represented, and one does not want this Board to pay undue attention to what will still be a minority, although, fortunately, a growing minority, of children who will go to universities, to the neglect of the others who will never have the benefit of a university education. It is a pity that the Government have taken this line.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) on the question of the chairmanship. It is always distasteful to make this kind of comment, because it can so easily be interpreted as some kind of criticism of the person who has been chosen. As most of us know, Sir David Anderson has had a most distinguished career in education. No one would wish in any way to criticise him personally, but this again is typical of the Government's approach.
It is obviously a delicate operation to appoint a chairman for a body of this kind. The tendency seems to be to make a safe appointment of a distinguished person who is removed from the hurly-burly of educational life, on the ground that this will not offend anybody and there will not be any need to make a choice between different representatives of different educational interests As I have said, one does not

want to criticise the appointment because it can be interepreted as a criticism of the person, but I regret that the Government have done this where the chairmanship is for about four years. I think that Sir David Anderson is 68, which will take him to 72 by the time he finishes his first term of office. I should have preferred it if the Government had had the courage to appoint a younger man even at the risk of offending others who might have been appointed to the Board. The Government, however, have taken the easy way out.
I am not very happy about the provisions in Regulation No. 9(3) which will allow a subject panel to be composed wholly of persons who are not members of the Board. The subject panels, of course, have to be to a large extent expert panels. They are in no sense an amateur kind of body. Personally I deplore amateurism in things of this kind I am glad that we are to have this insertion of real professional expertise, but, on the other hand, the Board is made up of, I think, 37 members and I should not have thought that it would have been impossible to have at least one member from the Board on each subject panel—and I do not know how many panels there will be—even if that member was not someone who had any specialist interest in the subject under consideration. I am afraid that this Regulation may allow a subject panel to go too far in the direction of professional expertise.
It is quite useful for any professional body which will have executive powers—and this is what the panels will have under the main board—to have just one person at last who brings an outside interest to bear. I should certainly feel like that if it were a body representing my own professional interests. I realise that Regulation No. 9(3) is simply permissive and I hope that in practice the Board will not find it necessary to establish subject panels without at least one member of the Board being included on each panel.
I hope that the noble Lady, the Under-Secretary will give us a little more information about that. In particular, I hope that she will make a good deal clearer the proposals of the Secretary of State with regard to university appointments. I thought that the noble Lady rather


dodged that question when she was interrupted in her speech. It is an important point. I hope that we shall have an answer to it.

Mr. Hannan: As the noble Lady said, we have had a very good opportunity for debate and close questioning on these Regulations. If I may be permitted to do so, I express to the noble Lady the thanks of this side of the House for the care which she has taken in replying to what we have said. I should say that this is meant as a gesture of courtesy to the noble Lady and is no indication of our acceptance of her case on all points. Incidentally, we have showed her more courtesy than have hon. Members on her own side this evening. However, it is always more pleasant to look at the noble Lady from this side of the House than from that.
In view of the very good debate which we have had, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Orders of the Day — FOOTPATHS (CLEANSING AND MAINTENANCE)

9.16 p.m.

Sir Barnett Janner: I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Vehicles (Conditions of Use on Footpaths) Regulations 1963 (S.I., 1963, No. 2126), dated 19th December 1963, a copy of which was laid before this House on 2nd January, be annulled.
I do not know whether it is because he thinks that he has done so well that the Minister of Transport is joined with the Minister of Power in producing this wonderful set of Regulations, which, as I shall try to show, are about as futile as most of the things which the Minister of Transport has attempted to do up to now. I cannot understand why the Government should put themselves into the position of being up against everybody. Perhaps the reason is that they do not take other people into consideration. I cannot understand how else they could have got themselves into the muddle of introducing Regulations which are opposed by all the authorities concerned throughout the country. Perhaps what they have done in this case is consistent with everything else they

do. The fact remains that anyone who knows anything at all about these particular Regulations regards them as entirely wrong. The authorities which will be affected by them have not been properly consulted, with the result that what they regard as the right thing to do has been entirely denied them by the Government.
That is a statement of fact. It is not a party political attack on the Government. It is a criticism which comes from the Association of Municipal Corporations which represents all the boroughs of the country, from the County Councils' Association which represents alt the county councils, and from the Urban District Councils' Association. From the point of view of local government, they represent the whole community. Yet the Government go their own way irrespective of the views of others in a dream world, or nightmare world, ignoring everything that everyone else wants and introducing Regulations which I must ask them to withdraw and consider again.
The Regulations go unnecessarily far in putting difficulties in the way of highway authorities and contractors to highway authorities in the maintenance of footpaths. They are regarded as quite unsatisfactory by a number of organisations which have been in touch with me on the subject. This is the view of the County Councils' Association, the Association of Municipal Corporations, of which I have the privilege of being a vice-president, the British Road Federation, the Coated Tar Macadam Federation and the Road Rollers Association.
It is a common sight throughout the country today to see footpaths being made up with a tarmacadam metalled surface. To do this work, and to keep such footpaths in repair, it is plainly necessary that rollers must be used. Moreover, to carry out proper repair and maintenance work on such footpaths, it is essential to use reasonably heavy rollers, These rollers are of two types, vibratory and deadweight.
Although vibratory rollers generally weigh less than 1 ton, the effect of the vibration is to impose a load many times greater than 1 ton. I have tried to obtain some particulars about the precise amount of load imposed by a


vibratory roller, but it seems that the makers of such implements are a little shy of giving estimates, in face of these curious Regulations. This is not unnatural, since, if they claim too much efficiency for their vibratory rollers in this sense, they may find them ruled out of use.
Deadweight rollers usually weigh either 30 cwt. or 50 cwt. Furthermore, the extension of the use of bituminised material for the surfacing of footpaths has led to the development of laying machines similar to those used for laying road material but of narrower width. Such machines weigh more than 1 ton.
The Regulations state that the weight of the appliance or vehicle must not exceed 1 ton and that in no case must the weight transmitted to any strip of the surface of the footpath upon which the appliance rests exceed more than 12½ cwt.
between any two parallel lines drawn two feet apart on that surface at right angles to the longitudinal axis of the appliance".
The Minister shakes his head.

Mr. John McCann: What does that mean?

Sir B. Janner: It means that he is in agreement, in spite of what I have said. I hope that by the time I have finished he will shake his head the other way.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith): It is not difficult to be in agreement with the hon. Member when he is giving an easily understandable précis of what is in the Regulations.

Sir B. Janner: I thought that the Minister was shaking his head because he agreed not that this abuse had been made possible by the Government but with the abuse itself. I apologise.
The first condition in Regulation 4 would seem to rule out a large category of small motor rollers which today are frequently used by local authorities and their contractors for the maintenance of macadamised footpaths. The second condition would seem to rule out some of the vibratory compacting machines which are also used for laying and maintaining such footpaths. I have in my hand some particulars and illustrations of typical machines. They are the kind of machines being used at present.

Probably the Parliamentary Secretary will know them very well. It will not be possible to use these machines after these Regulations come into force.
One example is the Blaw Knox Minipaver which is advertised as being particularly suitable for footpath work. I understand that the production of about 100 of these new Minipavers is planned for 1964 on the assumption that about half will be used in this country—I draw the Parliamentary Secretary's attention particularly to the following fact—and that half will be exported. If these Regulations go through unamended, it seems that there will be no market for these Minipavers in the United Kingdom since their weight, even unloaded, is about 4 tons and the Regulations state that no vehicle can be used on pavements in a general way if it weighs more than 1 ton. Even if exemption is given—and I am sure that we shall hear all about exemption tonight—by the Minister of Power under Regulation 7, in no case must the weight exceed 3 tons.
Let me give as another example the well known small rollers turned out by the firm of Aveling Barford. These are excellent machines, and I have particulars of them here. The Minister may claim that there is adequate power in the Regulations to give directions for relaxation of the requirements of Regulation 4. It is true that provision for such relaxation exists in Regulation 7, but only, as I have indicated, for vehicles weighing up to 3 tons in any case. A local authority or anyone who wants to carry out repair work must go cap in hand to the Minister and ask, "Am I allowed to use a particular machine?"
Relaxation must be granted by the Minister of Power and must apply to a particular local authority or in a particular case. Presumably the Minister of Power is brought in, because of the consideration in some cases that gas mains may be laid below the pavement and damage may be done to gas pipes if the rollers weigh too much. I understand, however, that this should not be a serious risk if the gas mains are laid at a proper depth. I understand that there is provision on the Statute Book under which gas companies can be asked to lay their mains at a suitable depth if necessary or if it is thought desirable.


But the Regulations would appear to apply whether or not there were pipes under the ground in question or not. The local authority knows whether or not there are pipes there, not the Minister of Transport. Heaven knows he has enough on his hands, although perhaps the Minister of Power has not. I can imagine the Minister of Power sending his inspectors to see whether the local authority knows if there are gas or electricity pipes there. The whole thing is farcical.
I have said that the Regulations will apply whether or not there are pipes under any footpath. In any event, it would seem an intolerably complicated and dilatory procedure for the Minister of Power to be brought in whenever a 13 cwt. roller must be brought along to repair a particular little stretch of footpath in any part of the country.
I have had letters from local authorities about this matter. I know that my own association regards Regulation 4 as quite unnecessary and an interference with the legitimate and understandable work of the authorities. That applies to all authorities. The Minister should not misunderstand me. I am not merely talking about Labour-controlled boroughs. He is setting himself up against the whole lot. This is perhaps a new departure. Heaven knows how he will answer that, leave alone answering the authorities and his conscience about his own party's point of view.
Let me tell the House what the people representing the counties say. I think that the Parliamentary Secretary represents a county, but suppose that he does not. Let us see what some of his friends in the counties say. My association said categorically that it is against it. That means every borough council throughout the country. Leicester, part of which I am proud to represent in the House of Commons, has an intelligent council. It is Labour-controlled. Leicester is included with others of all political outlooks. They say that the Regulation is unnecessary.
What do the county councils say? Look how they have been treated—and some of them, I believe, are Conservative-controlled. They say:
The Association were consulted in September, 1962, and noted that draft Regulation

4(a) prescribed that the weight of the appliance or vehicle should not exceed 1 ton, while draft Regulation 8 enabled the Minister of Power to give a direction relaxing that requirement as it applied to a particular authority or in any particular case so as to permit the use of a vehicle to a weight not exceeding 2 tons.
On 12th October, 1962, the Secretary of this Association, after consultation with the Association's advisers, wrote to the Ministry of Transport as follows:
'In our view the minimum weight referred to paragraph 4(a) should be amended to 3 tons to allow for the use of footpath rollers weighing approximately 2 tons and tractors equipped for scrub cutting and weighing about 2½ tons. An increase in the permissive total weight of the vehicle would lead to corresponding increases in the weights defined in paragraphs 4(a) and 4(c).'
On 19th October, 1962"—
not 1963—
the Ministry of Transport"—
It is a pity that the Parliamentary Secretary does not have the other Minister with him. It would not be of much help to anybody, but his colleague should be here to listen to what he has landed the Minister of Power into. The letter states that
the Ministry of Transport acknowledged the Association's letter saying that the comments had been noted"—
That is the kind of answer to questions that we sometimes get from the Government—
and that they would be borne in mind when they were considering the replies received.
Nothing further was heard
from 19th October, 1962
until 2nd January"—
not 1963; that would be much too soon for the Government to answer—
1964, when a letter was received from the Ministry of Transport enclosing a copy of the Regulations which had been made on 19th December, 1963, and laid before Parliament on 2nd January, 1964: the weight prescribed by Regulation 4(a) is still 1 ton, although Regulation 7 (formerly draft Regulation 8) has been amended to permit the Minister of Power to give a direction relaxing the requirement as to weight to permit the use of a vehicle not exceeding 3 tons.
The Association object to these Regulations"—
and who could blame it? After what I have tried to explain tonight, nobody except the Government could blame the Association. The Government had better get out of this mess quickly and get the Minister of Transport out of it quickly, too. He is in it deeply enough. He has dragged


the Association into it and that is why there is objection.
The Association states that it supports the Motion standing in my name, which I am not surprised to hear, praying for the annulment of the Regulations. It states that
(a) there has been insufficient consultation with the Association in that no action whatsoever has been taken to amend Regulation 4(a), nor has any explanation been given of the reason why this Amendment could not be made;
(b) that the power contained in Regulation 7 for the Minister of Power to give a direction relaxing the requirements of Regulation 4(a) represents a quite unnecessary amount of paper work and central control over responsible authorities in what is comparatively a minor matter; because of the failure to prescribe three tons as the maximum permissible weight under Regulation 4(a), it will frequently be necessary to ask for this relaxation to be granted.
I know that this Prayer is coming from this side of the House, and perhaps in those circumstances it is not as palatable as it might otherwise have been; hut, after all, common sense is common sense, is it not? It is no earthly good the Minister's sticking to something which is nonsense and which flies in the teeth of everybody who has control of these matters. The Parliamentary Secretary is a reasonable fellow as a rule. He may not be tonight; I do not know; I do not want to commit myself too far. Still, I hope that perhaps on reconsidering the matter he may decide that after all he ought to withdraw these Regulations and say to himself that before he introduces a different kind of regulations, even if that is necessary at all, he will sit down with the authorities who really know their business and discuss them with them in advance.
Even if he cannot trust them with anything else, and he certainly does not trust them with very much money, surely at least he can trust them to look after their footpaths and not to do any unnecessary damage to them, and to have the sense to know whether they should use a vehicle of 8 cwt. or 1 ton 4 cwt. without coming down to their headquarters about it. Just imagine the number of people concerned every time they have to send out one of these things. The Minister will have to send an inspector to examine the road and see what is underneath every time. Or will the Government take the word of the local authority? If they do not trust the

authority they will have to dig up the drains every time, dig up the electric wires and have a look at them and put them back again. If they do not find anything underneath at all they will be in trouble; they will find nothing and will just have to put the earth back into the hole from which they took it.
It is all steer nonsense, and so I ask the hon. Gentleman in these circumstances to agree to annul these Regulations, which really are ridiculous ones.

9.38 p.m.

Mr. Cyril Bence: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, North-West (Sir B. Janner) for moving this Prayer against these Regulations, because Regulation No. 4 seems to me rather extraordinary, unless, of course, I have read it incorrectly. This delegated legislation is very often very difficult to understand Regulation No. 4, though, is rather extraordinary.
According to this, a vehicle must not exceed 1 ton in weight. That is in paragraph (a). It can have two wheels 2 ft. apart and at that point of impact the given weight must not exceed 12½ cwt. That is if the vehicle has two wheels. I presume that on this vehicle one could have two wheels transversely 2 ft. apart giving a force of 12½ cwt. at that point. It would have to be a three-wheeled or four-wheeled vehicle, not a two-wheeled vehicle, that is a certainty.
If there were another pair of wheels which would be 2 ft. apart, then according to this Regulation they would have to be transverse and of longitudinal to the other two and they could have a weight at that point of contact of another 12½ cwt.; that is, 25 cwt. But the whole thing must not weigh more than 1 ton. It seems to me that under subparagraph (b) it could weigh 25 cwt. if it is a four-wheeled vehicle. If it is a three-wheeler that is to say, if there is not another wheel in the same line transversely to the longitudinal track of the vehicle—the weight over any one wheel must not exceed 8 cwt. As the weight over the two wheels can be 12½ cwt. and over the other wheel 8 cwt., the total Weight could be 1½ tons, according to the Regulation.
What does all this mean? It seems to me that the mathematics are a lot of nonsense. This is crazy. Whoever


worked this one out? It is not possible to have a vehicle with two wheels. If the vehicle has three wheels, when each wheel is on a weighing machine it could comply with sub-paragraph (c) and subparagraph (b), but it will exceed the weight in sub-paragraph (a). That means that a manufacturer would not be able to manufacture to the limits in subparagraph (b) and sub-paragraph (c)—though it seems to me reasonable enough that he should be able to do so—because in the sum total the weight would exceed the limit provided in sub-paragraph (a).
It is not sufficient to state, as is stated in Regulation No. 7:
The Minister of Power may give a direction relaxing the requirements of Regulation 4…
What a business this is going to be if a manufacturer has to work things out in such detail as this. I must support my hon. Friend in asking the Minister to take these Regulations back and to have Regulation No. 4 examined again.
If we take sub-paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) together they make nonsense. I doubt very much whether any manufacturer would manufacture a three-wheeled vehicle, but that is what the language of this Regulation means. Regulation No. 4 (c) states:
… where no other wheel is in the same line transversely …
If there is no wheel in the same line transversely, and if it is not a three-wheeled vehicle, it must be a wheelbarrow, but we would not have a wheelbarrow weighing 8 cwt.
Therefore, the Regulations must refer to a three-wheeled vehicle. To comply with sub-paragraph (c), the three-wheeled vehicle Regulation, it will weigh over 1 ton, and if we consider the four-wheeled vehicle with two pairs of wheels 2 ft. apart transversely, the weight of impact longitudinally will total 25 cwt. There is something wrong there. I admit that I may be reading the Regulation wrongly, but I think that the Minister should look at this again and redraft it.

9.43 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith): I listened with great interest to the hon. Member for Leicester, North-

West (Sir B. Janner) in praying against these Regulations. We know the wide range of his interests in various transport matters. Only the other day he was showing his knowledge of arboriculture when we discussed the propriety of planting rosa multiflora japonica. Yesterday he delighted the House with his remarks on the Hackney Carriage Bill. We all enjoyed that. Tonight he is engaged in the more mundane, but nevertheless practically very important, matter of footpath repair, and I think we would all agree that he put his case persuasively.
Before replying to the hon. Gentleman, I should like to give some of the background to these Regulations and explain why we are having them. As I expect the hon. Gentleman knows, up till now it has been unlawful for any vehicle to be used on a footpath or footway. Section 72 of the Highways Act, 1835, makes it an offence for any person wilfully to drive a carriage of any description, or any truck or sledge, upon any footpath or causeway by the side of any road made or set apart for the use or accommodation of foot passengers.
In addition, Section 18 of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, prohibits motor vehicles from being driven on any road being a footpath or bridle way. That is the general position in law but, naturally, with the advent of modern machinery and methods of footpath construction and maintenance, local authorities have been anxious to avail themselves of these new facilities and some of them have taken powers to permit the use of such appliances by means of local Acts. That was done, among others, by Coventry and Bootle.
In order to regularise this position it was decided in the Public Health Act, 1961, to extend these powers throughout the country and so authority was given in Section 49 to the Ministers of Transport and Power to make Regulations permitting local authorities to use these modern appliances. It is in exercise of this power that these Regulations have been framed.
I am sure the hon. Gentleman the Member for Leicester, North-West appreciates that, without these Regulations and in the absence of local Acts, the use of any vehicle on a footpath is illegal. We felt, therefore, that something had to be


done. The theme of the hon. Gentleman's criticism is, however, that although we have done something we have not done enough—

Sir B. Janner: Not the right thing.

Mr. Galbraith: —and that the restrictions imposed are not sensible having regard to modern conditions. I wish that I could agree with him but our experience is unfortunately not the same as his.
As the hon. Gentleman knows, footpaths are often used by public utilities when they are laying their pipes. A heavy load on the footpath, especially during its repair or reconstruction, can easily damage the pipes beneath the surface. The primary object of the Regulations therefore is to protect the public from the consequences of damage, especially to gas mains which are often laid in footpaths along the streets.
The danger the hon. Gentleman referred to as being comparatively minor is, on the contrary, very serious indeed. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Power has given me examples of the appalling record of deaths from this cause. I am told that each year there are about 30 deaths as a result of cracked gas mains.

Mr. McCann: Surely some of these are on roads where heavy vehicles are allowed without control.

Mr. Galbraith: I am coming to that. Of course we do not know how many are attributable to vehicles because, in many cases, the cause of the fracture is undetected and the results may not appear until some time afterwards. But the inherent danger does exist and is something we cannot ignore.
The trouble is that escaping gas cannot usually get away through the pavement. It often finds its outlet sideways, which means that where terraced houses are built up to the footpath with no front garden the gas seeps through into the house—often with fatal results, especially when it happens at night when people are asleep. Even where there is a garden between the pavement and the house there is some chance of the gas escaping through the earth and creating a potentially dangerous situation.
The Regulations permit the local authorities to use on footpaths mechani

cal appliances for their construction, cleansing and maintenance. It was at that stage of his speech that the hon. Gentleman saw me nodding in agreement. I was not necessarily agreeing with everything else he was saying. These appliances, however, are subject to a weight limit of 1 ton for any vehicle and to a spied limit of 5 m.p.h. The hon. Gentleman did not think that that was too low.
I did not think that hon. Members would wish me to explain the details about how the weight is transmitted to the surface of the pavement through the various axles of the machine, but the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) has raised the matter. It is difficult to explain across the Floor, but if he likes to meet me at the back of the Chair, I am perfectly prepared to make a drawing which, I hone, will make the matter clear to him. The object is to spread the load as far as possible so as to reduce the impact.
It is thought that we have been too careful in all this and that overall the weight limit is too restrictive. We have given this matter a good deal of thought and in order to avoid being too rigid, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Power, where he thinks fit and where the local circumstances justify it, can increase the weight limit to 3 tons in particular cases.
The hon. Member for Leicester, North-West suggested that local authorities were responsible bodies, whether they were Conservative or Labour, and were as competent to look after the public interest in this matter as the Minister of Power or the Minister of Transport.

Sir B. Janner: I did not say that they were responsible bodies in every respect. I said that they were sufficiently responsible for this purpose.

Mr. Galbraith: We will not quibble about that. At any rate, the hon. Gentleman says that they are responsible in this respect whether they are Conservative or Socialist.
However, as I explained earlier, the damage may take some time to show itself and no one will then know what has been the cause, whether the repair operations or something else. I agree


that the local authorities are responsible, but we thought that we should try to eliminate repair work on footpaths as a possible cause of leaking gas. I am sure that the hon. Member with his well known humanistic outlook, will agree that prevention is better than any indemnity which might be given by the local authorities if they do any damage inadvertently. We want to prevent and not just compensate after the damage is done.
The hon. Gentleman also suggested that the local authorities objected to the regulations, and he read some extracts from newspapers. I must admit that I found it a little difficult to understand everything he said. He probably knows that when regulations are made under the Road Traffic Act, 1960, the Minister is obliged by Section 260(2) to consult such interested organisations and associations as he may think fit, but no such requirement is made by the Public Health Act, 1961. However, the Minister went out of his way to consult the organisations and authorities concerned, such as the County Councils Association, the Association of Municipal Corporations, the Metropolitan Boroughs Standing Joint Committee, and all the local authority organisations the hon. Gentleman mentioned.

Sir B. Janner: He went out of his way to consult them and then told them what was being done without consulting, them about the effects.

Mr. Galbraith: The hon. Gentleman is anticipating what I was about to say. I was hoping to deal with all this aspect. I was trying to show that my right hon. Friend was not obliged to do so, but did consult the organisations concerned. The proposals originally put to the associations were that the weight of vehicles used on the pavement should be limited to 1 ton, with a proviso that this could be increased to 2 tons at the discretion of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Power.
In the comments received from the associations the main objection was to the weight limit of 1 ton. The associations pointed out, quite rightly, that there were a number of appliances on the market which they wished to use and which were in excess of this limit,

and even in excess of the 2-ton limit proposed in special cases. These machines included cleansing apparatus, rollers, and scrub cutters which were in the region of 2 to 2½ tons, and which would be barred if the original proposals had become law.
As a result of these observations from the local authority associations the matter was considered further by my right hon. Friend's Department, and also by the Department of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Power. The Minister of Power was, however, insistent that to protect gas mains it was essential to maintain 1 ton as a general limit. However, in the light of the representations and further careful thought, he agreed to the limit being uplifted to 3 tons in special cases, and we thought that this change met the suggestion of the local authorities on the question of weight. It is for that reason that I find it difficult to understand the heat which our action has apparently raised with the local authorities. However, I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we probably ought to have told the associations to what extent we were able to meet their points, and I should like to apologise for our inadvertent appearance of rudeness in failing to do that.
What the hon. Gentleman did not draw attention to, however, was that the local authority associations also complained about the proposed Regulations limiting the use of appliances on footpaths to daylight hours. They stressed the view that it was not always possible to confine the work to this period, especially during the winter months. They stressed that this was particularly so in the case of street markets where it was necessary to start clearing-up operations immediately the market closed. In view of these representations, we decided to allow the use of vehicles on footpaths at any hour of the night or day, provided that they exhibited the obligatory lights required by the Road Transport Act, 1957, and the associated Regulations.
The hon. Gentleman will, therefore, see that not only were the local authorities consulted, but that in both instances account was taken of their views and adjustments made to meet them, perhaps not all the way, but a good deal


of the way, and I do not see how we could have gone any further to meet the point; made by the hon. Gentleman without imperilling public safety.
We do, however, want to do everything that we can to make the procedure work smoothly—and I think that this may help the hon. Gentleman—so my right hon. Friend the Minister of Power has undertaken to see that the granting of relaxations is carried out speedily and with the minimum of red tape. The hon. Gentleman devoted a considerable portion of his speech to that. He did it in a humorous way, but I saw what he was getting at.
To ensure that, my right hon. Friend will arrange for his officials to invite representatives of the local authority associations concerned to meet in the near future. This meeting will discuss procedure for submitting applications with a view to simplifying the practical working arrangements, and I am sure this ought to help them to get on with the job.
The hon. Gentleman also suggested that uncertainty as to what equipment would be permitted by the Ministry of Power would prevent contractors from tendering for maintenance work on these footpaths. I do not know whether I could go all the way with the hon. Gentleman, because I am fairly certain that a local authority will know what it wants and will obtain my right hon. Friend's relaxation under the Regulations before going out to tender.
The hon. Gentleman also referred—and I am glad that he did so—to vibratory rollers, because these machines have fairly recently come into operation. They operate by way of a vibratory motion causing the roller to thud on the surface which is being constructed or levelled instead of rolling smoothly in normal way.
Our attention has been drawn to the fact that even if these vibratory machines are within the weight limit of 1 ton it is possible that they could inflict more damage to the gas mains than heavier rollers of normal construction. If this is the case, my right hon. Friend's Department will need to consider whether or not the Regulations require amending so as to control their use. I am glad that the hon. Member

appreciates the possible damage that this type of roller may cause.
The hon. Member also referred to the fact that in certain areas there were no pipes at all. In that case he wondered why the discretion should be limited to 3 tons. Curiously enough, when the matter was being considered no one mentioned any equipment of a weight heavier than 3 tons.

Sir B. Janner: Perhaps I expressed myself badly, but I pointed out that if there were no pipes at all it did not seem necessary to have this limit. It is foolish not to leave it to the discretion of the local authority. If it knows that there are no pipes below the footpath, why bother with the Minister of Power or the Minister of Transport?

Mr. Galbraith: A local authority may or may not know that there are no pipes under the footpath. It is not the responsible authority for gas. I thought that the hon. Member was asking why, in a country area where there was no gas, the Minister of Power's discretion was limited by these Regulations to a weight of 3 tons.
There are two reasons for this. First, nobody in any of our discussions, or in any correspondence, has referred to any equipment of a weight heavier than 3 tons. I ad nit that in country districts there may be long stretches of road without pipes beneath the footpaths, but work on such footpaths that is likely to require the sort of equipment envisaged by the Regulations is unlikely to be so prevalent as to make it economic to employ special equipment heavier than that in general use on the great majority of footpaths. However, if there are many such cases we shall have to consider the matter again.

Mr. McCann: If a local authority can say that there are definitely no pipes beneath a footpath, would consent be automatic?

Mr. Galbraith: I should not like to say that that was necessarily so. But that is the kind of point that would come out in the discussions which my right hon. Friend the Minister of Power hopes to have shortly with local authority organisations.
I now turn to the important question of what is to happen in the future. These


Regulations are new. They permit the use of these relatively modern machines on footpaths generally for the first time. This is an advance, although one would not have realised it, listening to the hon. Member's speech. These Regulations allow the use of these modern machines on footpaths for the first time, provided that they are not so heavy as to cause damage to any pipes that may be laid beneath them. Obviously, if they are found to be defective in practice my right hon. Friend will no doubt consider whether or not any Amendments are necessary or practicable, taking into account the danger that may be caused. But I would urge local authorities, through the hon. Member, to give these Regulations a fair trial in order to see how we get on.
In conclusion, I hope that what I have said may remove any misunderstandings which have existed. The Regulations are necessary in order to legalise the use of vehicles on footpaths, and they therefore represent an advance. In general, the weight of these vehicles has to be kept to 1 ton because of the danger to gas mains. In particular cases, however, where the Minister of Power thinks that it is safe, the weight may be increased threefold, and we do not exclude a review in the light of experience. At the end of the day, however, we are faced with a clash of interests. We have to face the difference between what the hon. Gentleman regards as the proper use of the most modern, up-to-date and efficient equipment and what the Government regard as their responsibilities for public health.
Knowing the hon. Gentleman's interest in the prevention of accidents, his championship of ruthless efficiency whatever may be the danger is certainly unexpected. It just shows that the one thing about which one may be sure in politics is that one may be sure of nothing. It exhibits another facet of the wide-ranging concern of the hon. Gentleman to achieve the best. We have thought about this matter a great deal in the light of the dangerous situation which may result from fractured gas pipes. We have gone as far as we can to meet the views properly expressed by the hon. Gentleman in the interest of mov-

ing with the times. But I am sure that we should be open to the severest censure if we went further to meet him. My right hon. Friend will arrange the discussions about which I spoke earlier, and I hope that in the light of what I have said, which shows that we realise that there is a problem from the point of view of the local authorities, but indicating that we too have a problem, the hon. Gentleman may feel disposed to withdraw his Motion.

Sir B. Janner: In view of the courteous way in which the Parliamentary Secretary has presented his case, and as the Government are to consult the authorities—and probably will come to the conclusion that they will want to alter these Regulations—I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Orders of the Day — ITINERANT CARAVAN DWELLERS

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. MacArthur.]

10.7 p.m.

Mr. Victor Goodhew: I am grateful for this opportunity to raise a subject which has created a considerable problem in Hertfordshire, namely the question of the itinerant caravan dweller. It is particularly noticeable in my constituency of St. Albans, and I know that my hon. Friends the Members for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. Longden) and Hertford (Lord Balniel) are also interested. It is a problem which has two sides. There is, first, the question of the caravan dwellers themselves, and then there is the problem which their way of life creates for others in the vicinity where they stay. The caravan dwellers are, firstly, the Romany families, whose numbers seem to be dwindling because they are gradually settling down to normal ways of life. They do not create the same problem which arises in the case of other caravan dwellers. There are only about a dozen Romany families in Hertfordshire, and they have been catered for by the Barbara Cartland-Onslow Trust.
The second type of caravan dweller is the didicoi, and this term covers a range of different people who move


about the country, sometimes over only a limited area. Although their number varies, they seem to be increasing. Most of them are scrap metal dealers, and one thing which is immediately noticeable is that since they have no fixed abode they do not pay rates or taxes and would seem, therefore, to that extent to be parasites on society. These people have their own problem in that they are unable to park their vehicles permanently on the roadside and are pushed from pillar to post. One appreciates that they choose this way of life and one sympathises with them, but one also realises that some sort of solution must be found which will not result in encouraging too many people to indulge in this way of life, which is not compatible with modern conditions when there is a shortage of agricultural land and over-crowding.
One has to look at the interests of other people in a locality in which the didicois and other caravan dwellers may wish to rest. One finds a hideous mess of scrap metal along the sides of the pleasant lanes of Hertfordshire which are gradually being turned into mere junk yards. This has an adverse effect on people who live in the neighbourhood. Fences are pulled down and used for firewood, and the land becomes foul because there is no sanitation where these people choose to live. There is no water supply available to them and they have to go around the neighbourhood badgering the residents for water, and when their demands become too great or inconvenient and they are refused they tend to be abusive.
One also finds complaints of theft, but I discount these in many cases because others regard the presence of caravan dwellers in their area as a camouflage allowing them to indulge in theft and put the blame on the caravan dwellers. I was interested to hear of a constituent who had an old car he had finished with. One of these people called with a lorry loaded with iron bedsteads and kitchen stoves and asked if he had any scrap metal he wanted to dispose of. My constituent offered his old car and the man gave him £5 for it. My constituent accepted the £5 and went off to play golf. When he came back he found that the lorry driver had gone but the whole of its contents had been dumped on his grounds, which

shows that much of the scrap metal these people collect is not disposed of for cash.
Fines are obviously not sufficient to deter people from breaking the law. The maximum fine for causing litter is £10. The maximum for camping on the highway is £2, and the maximum for lighting a fire close to the highway is £2. If one looks at the very expensive equipment which most of these people have one realises that such fines are no real deterrent. Most of them have large and expensive modern lorries and caravans which are not like the old horse-drawn caravan described in the song "Where my caravan has rested". They also have portable television masts supported by guy ropes and their living accommodation is up-to-date. With all these signs of money earned from scrap metal dealing it is clear that they enjoy their position in which they pay no rates or taxes.
Although the police do all they can to see that these people do not cause annoyance, it is difficult to trace them when they are constantly on the move. In the last year of which I have figures, 1962, Hertfordshire Constabulary instituted 593 prosecutions, but in spite of that the problem remains unsolved. The Government have taken certain action, and in 1962 a circular was sent out to county councils suggesting that they should make a survey to discover how many of these itinerant caravan families were in their areas and then to consult district councils and other local authorities to see if they could find permanent sites on which these people could dwell. We found hi the County of Hertfordshire that whilst we only had a dozen true Romany families, we had 89 families of didicois and other nomadic families. I understand that since that survey was completed in 1962 the number has gone up to an estimated 100, so it is clear that this is a way of life that is attracting additional people, and is not a dwindling problem.
The moment one suggests making permanent sites one comes up against the fact that everyone agrees that that is a splendid idea until one suggests that the site should be near where they live. That is one of the principal difficulties that any county council or other local authority will come up against as soon as it starts implementing that proposal.
One can well understand why people have these feelings. It is only a few months ago that, just outside the boundary of my constituency, a field owned by the county council was suddenly invaded by a number of caravans. The moment it was seen that they were not "turfed off" at once, the number started increasing. There were complaints from residents in the neighbourhood about trouble over water supplies, and so on, and rather than have those complaints continue, the county council had a water pipe put in.
That installation was heard about by people as far away as Birmingham—people even in Ireland heard about this water supply—and in no time we had more than 60 caravans on the site, and a most hideous conglomeration of scrap iron as well. Here was a site close to the junction of the M1—one of the finest motorways in the country—and another road, and every traveller on the M1 saw not only all the lorries and caravans, but all this hideous mass of junk that went with them.
That has taught us certain lessons. We have been fortunate in having in my area a ratepayers association in Bricket Wood that has taken a keen interest in the matter and has tried, through me, to have a deputation received by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government. At the time it attempted to do this there was an application for this site to become a temporary caravan site, but that is now finished, and I hope that the experience in this area may be of help to my right hon. Friend in looking at the whole matter anew.
One thing that everyone would agree about is that it will be necessary to have a nationally co-ordinated programme to deal with this problem because it is quite clear from our experience with this one site, which was not even an official site, that the moment it is known that a site is available in a county, people come from far and wide to use it. Therefore, unless there is a co-ordinated programme, the county councils will shy off and no one will want to be the first to start.
Again, these caravan sites will cost money—because they must have a

water supply, sanitation and, presumably, hard standing—and if one is to be fair to the population at large it is only right that these sites should be self-supporting, that those occupying them should pay a proper economic rent, and that there is no burden on the ratepayers in the vicinity.
Another factor is the size of the sites. It is absolutely certain that if one is to think in terms of sites to take 12, 20 or more caravans, one only expands the problem. If we have large sites, there is a tendency for intermarriage amongst the families there so that one only enlarges the number of people who are likely to pursue this way of life, whereas, if they can be split into smaller units, one is the more likely to break them down and absorb them into the community—which is, I believe, the only final answer.
My constituents feel that one caravan per site should be the maximum. That is not easy to arrange, because of the expense, but I should have thought that the sites could be limited to family units, so that a family with four or five caravans at most would be the limit. There would not then be this tendency to intermarry.
There is also the important factor of education. An important point here is clearly that the children of these people should be properly educated and then one hopes that they will become normal members of the population instead of itinerants. If they are to be educated and we are to have a site with 20 to 30 caravans on it outside a village, the load on the local education is quite impossible to sustain. Here again, therefore, there is a good argument for having limited sites. If we are to look at this question now, I hope that we shall look at it in terms of this sort of arrangement, of a co-ordinated plan with smaller sites and with the object of trying to rehouse and rehabilitate these people in time so that the sites will gradually disappear.
If we do not do this I can well see that others living in bungalows and small houses may decide that they can have a caravan site the moment somebody else vacates it, that it is cheaper, that they will pay lower rates and rents, and they will have a caravan too. Our aim should be to try and see that this


is a problem that dies over the years and that people are absorbed in the normal community rather than that we should perpetuate it.
I should have thought that something could be done also about controlling the scrap dealer. When my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-West (Sir D. Kaberry) introduced a Bill, I thought that it would cover this very problem but I am told that this is not so. It seems to me absurd. For instance, if in my 7-acre field alongside my cottage in my constituency I started to deal in scrap metal and I had a couple of old cars there, the county council would be on me like a ton of bricks, and quite rightly. It would say that this is a residential area and that I was using it for commercial purposes. Yet we are allowing other people to use for this purpose very similar parts of the country which they do not own or even rent.
We should have some form of licence for all scrap dealers so that there is not this indiscriminate buying and selling and then dumping on the roadside or in the fields of what remains that cannot be sold off. I sometimes wonder whether it is not possible to have a proper agency for dealing with the large scrap produced by cars taken off the road. People are quite rightly outraged when they find the countryside completely spoiled by people who are making a good living tax-free and rate-free at the expense of their fellow-countrymen. I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to tell me that the Government are looking anew at this matter and that they will take some initiative in trying to bring the local authorities together.
If we are merely going to issue advisory circulars I do not think that this is enough. We must have a co-ordinated programme with a limited size to sites and some means of controlling dealing in scrap metal. If we do that we can hope that these people will gradually be absorbed and will benefit from the Welfare State in which we live, having contributed a fair share towards it.

10.24 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. F. V. Corfield): My hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew) has raised a question which I think is one of the most difficult,

although relatively small, with which we are faced. The problem arises not because these people live in caravans but because the are itinerants and not only because they are mobile but because it is their way of life to move. It is an immensely difficult problem to see how we can compete with this, as my hon. Friend himself puts it, without encouraging people to add to the queue.
We have recently had what I regard as a rather tragic instance of this in Kent. There is no doubt that Kent County Council, perhaps with a little prodding but nevertheless with some degree of enthusiasm, has endeavoured to find sites and to encourage its district councils to find sites for the gipsy population normally centred in Kent. Recently, as hon. Members will have seen, we had a case at Sittingbourne where a large number of people swept down, as my hon. Friend put it, from far and wide on the news of a new site being provided, or likely to be provided, in a rural district in Kent. These people, on investigation, were found to have come from as far as Lancashire in the North and Wales in the West. People had flocked in from areas which hitherto had had no real problem because the land shortage there is not what it is around the great conurbations and where they had managed to fit into the rural life without causing a nuisance or outcry.
When they concentrated at Sitting-bourne, the result was a tremendous outcry. The local council, the Sitting-bourne and Milton Urban District Council, which had been one of the first to come forward and try to find a permanent site, was literally besieged during a council meeting by a public indignant at the mess and nuisance that these people who had arrived from far and wide had caused. In the result, the local council, which had in every respect behaved with the greatest restraint and responsibility, was virtually forced, in the face of public opinion among its own electorate, not only to move these people on but to cancel its original ideas for providing a relatively small permanent site for the gypsies normally based in Kent.
This is one of the dilemmas facing us. The hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Dodds)—I am sorry that he is not here—has done a great deal


to bring the public conscience to bear on this matter, but, of course, we are, in a sense, reaching the stage when the publicity which is necessary to arouse the public conscience is also arousing public anxiety in the places where one wants, or it is desirable to have, sites. In a sense, therefore, the publicity is counterbalancing itself. This is well illustrated by what happened at Sitting-bourne.
From a national point of view, as the House will realise, the problem really centres on the conurbations. I have no doubt that there are plenty of itinerants in the North, in Wales and in the Border counties, but there the land problem is not so acute as it is in the conurbations. There also, people are absorbed without causing nuisance, and they probably move from one traditional site to another as some of them, particularly the Romanies, have done for centuries.
Around the conurbations, on the other hand, there is the pressure on land. Also, as my hon. Friend said, there are the pressures of scrap dealing and other associated trades in the centres of population. Moreover, there is the problem that the traditional sites have been developed or in other ways made unsuitable for occupation. I think that one must regard it as a problem concentrated in certain areas. In the Home Counties around London it is, perhaps, the worst. There are certain counties in the Midlands affected too, but it is around London that the main problem arises.
Although there is a demand for a general survey, the difficulty is that the survey is not likely at present to give very accurate figures, even if one takes it on a certain date. As my hon. Friend has said, as soon as there is rumour of a site, all sorts of people come in who have nothing to do with Kent, Sussex, Surrey or Hertfordshire, as the case may be. In the Home Counties, it is only fair to say that Kent has taken the lead and has really done a very great deal since the circular to which my hon. Friend alluded, very largely—I am only too willing to pay credit where it is due—as a result of the publicity and pressure of the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford.
Now we have the situation that Kent, having taken the lead, instead of get-

ting any alleviation of the burden, is tending to attract the didicois, gipsies or whatever one likes to call them, from areas which have not been as conscientious. The House will realise that my right hon. Friend has no direct powers in this matter. It is a local authority responsibility. Local authorities have the powers and my right hon. Friend has no power to give them directives, so that our efforts are confined to persuasion.
If we were looking round the Home Counties, we would give a good pat on the back to Kent, a not quite so heavy one to Hertfordshire and precious little elsewhere, except to Hampshire, which has tackled the problem in a totally different way. Hampshire has said that this is a welfare problem and it is treating it on a county council basis, making hutted camps available and treating the people as welfare cases, with the express purpose of training them, so to speak, to be decent tenants of council houses.
I am glad to say that Hampshire has had the co-operation of a number of urban and rural district councils in the county, who are finding the houses as best they can for the people whom the county welfare authorities regard as suitable to occupy them. This seems to me to be an inspiring way of tackling the problem. I rather think, however, that we want both ways because, as my hon. Friend has said, there are at least two types of itinerant.
There is the genuine Romany, who seems to be a dwindling race and does not give much trouble. Also, there is a subdivision of what my hon. Friend broadly called the didicois. There are the people who are interested predominantly in scrap-metal dealing but also in logs, second-hand clothing and that type of thing. At the bottom end of the scale, although I admit that they merge, there are the genuine social misfits, some of whom have been in council houses and have proved either such appallingly unsatisfactory tenants that they have been moved out or have moved out themselves through complete inability to adjust themselves to the sort of society which the vast majority of us regard as the sensible way of organising our lives.
I think, therefore, that we probably want two approaches. We want the welfare approach of Hampshire and we


want the small local authority organised site approach of Kent. But we certainly want a great deal more effort in the other Home Counties and in certain other counties round the conurbations. I am most anxious that we should get a bigger effort and a more fair sharing of the load round London in particular. I assure my hon. Friend that I shall be making every effort to get the local authorities together again to see what we can do in this direction. I had a conference with them about a year ago and there is no doubt that this has produced results.
I will not bore the House with a list of possibilities, probabilities, near certainties and certainties, but even outside Kent and Hertfordshire there are a number of sites which, we hope, will come forward. Every time, however, that we have the sort of incident that occurred at Sittingbourne, there is an enormous public outcry and we suffer a setback. We find that when a site which has been suggested either by a public-spirited private owner or by a local authority is going through quietly, it immediately encounters enormous resistance, planning inquiries and the rest, and it may well be that in the end it is impossible to grant the planning permission or to establish a site because of the local outcry or, possibly, for other good planning reasons. So we have to try to keep a balance.
I agree with my hon. Friend that the problem of stopping these scrap dumps from being left all over the place is a very considerable one. The trouble is that if we establish a camp without land allocated for this, the people will not stay. Some of the people in the Sitting-bourne incident actually came from one of the new sites at Strood because they objected to paying the very modest site fees. On the other hand, it is very difficult, if they are really on the move, to tie them down and to get a conviction under the Litter Act.
I assure my hon. Friend that we regard this as a serious problem, but we also recognise that it is a question of holding a balance, because we do not want to encourage this way of life. I am sure that everybody will agree that the thing to do is to persuade these people to settle in houses where they can get steady jobs and steady education and so on. At the same time, we do not want to go to the other extreme of registering these people as second-class citizens and of insisting that they settle here or there. We want to preserve local responsibility and to make sure it is lived up to. This it will be my endeavour and that of my right hon. Friend to do. I am sure that the House will realise that, with no power of direction, there are limits to that, but we will do our very best by persuasion.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-four minutes to Eleven o'clock.